


The Fountain

by burymeinziam



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Coming of Age, Fountain of Youth, M/M, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burymeinziam/pseuds/burymeinziam
Summary: The one where Liam never dies and Zayn wants forever.
Relationships: Niall Horan/Zayn Malik, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> A reworked version of the original that was originally posted about seven years ago. The story is pretty much the same although I've added in a few bits and pieces for character development and what not. This one was especially fun to revisit just because I love the universe I imagine them in. It's something I can see myself playing around with a little bit more once this is finished.

It’s when the nights are cold and the fire is casting a warm glow around the living room where he’s curled up with his favorite book that Liam feels it most. His father’s armchair is empty, but the blanket his mother had knitted when he was a kid is draped around his shoulders. He can still picture it, his father settled into that armchair drinking his nightly glass of whiskey while his mother hums the song her mother used to sing to her as she washes the dishes they’d all used at dinner. His sister is playing with one of her dolls in front of the fireplace, making up stories about knights in shining armor and dragon guarded castles and Liam…

Liam wishes he could just sit back and watch it all over again. He wishes he could soak in the beauty that was his family and feel the happiness they all brought with them. Liam wishes he had a do over because he never took the time to appreciate it the first time. Before, Liam had been concerned with adventure and leaving his embarrassingly small town behind him. He was preoccupied with the idea of danger and magic and everything that wasn’t the mundane day-to-day of early mornings and tending to his family’s farm.  
Now, years later (and more than he would like to count), Liam longs for those moments he used to spend on his father’s knee listening to stories about how family farm had belonged to his father and his father before him and how, one day, it would be Liam’s. He yearns for the days when he used to wake up with the sun and tend to the cows and the chickens. Liam misses seeing his little sister sitting in the kitchen with their mother learning to sew. 

Liam yearns for the simplicity that came with his old life before he knew the true meaning of love and loss and how unfortunately intertwined the two really are.

Mostly, Liam just wishes he hadn’t been so selfish and ambitious and absorbed. He wishes he’d thought about the consequences and what forever truly meant. Because it isn’t romantic and it isn’t beautiful. It’s not graceful nouns and pretty adjectives strung together to make poetry. 

Forever is callous and it’s harsh and it’s lonely. It’s cold and removed and Liam would give anything to close his eyes and slip into darkness because, with the way things are looking, there is no light.

**+**

Nobody seems to understand why Zayn cares so much about the bird that runs into their living room window. At eight-years-old, his parents expected tears and having to answer questions about God and Heaven. They expected to tell Zayn that the bird was in a better place and there was nothing to worry about.

No one expects Zayn to run outside and take the bird into his arms and will it back to life. His parents surely don’t expect him to care enough to want to hold a funeral for the bird, to want to find the bird’s family and let them know what happened. 

At eight-years-old, no one expects Zayn to be so caring and empathetic towards something so outside of himself, especially something as arbitrary as a little bird that flew into their living room window. 

But he is; and he does. 

Zayn’s parents give him a little shoe box and watch him tuck the bird safely inside before sealing it shut with some duct tape from the garage. Although they don’t attend the funeral, they let him bury the bird in the front yard. It’s nothing special; just the boy and a few words he can think to say about a creature he’d never even gotten the chance to know. 

But he’s not alone. Not really. There’s a man standing across the street with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans watching this eight-year-old boy give a eulogy about life and how he hopes the bird had a good one; how isn’t all that sad about the bird dying because his mom told him that he’s probably in a good place and how Zayn really hopes that’s true. 

The man can’t hear every word that this little boy is saying, but he can feel the sincerity and it’s something that he’s never seen before. It’s not commonplace for people to feel this way about things they don’t know and yet here is this boy mourning something so outside of himself in a way that feels easy and honest. Like it’s something Zayn knows needs to be done; like it’s deserved. 

It’s the way he holds the box like it’s something fragile; something sacred and meant to be treasured. His eyes are warm and caring as he looks down at the makeshift coffin like he can see straight into it. Zayn looks into the shoebox as if it were an old friend. It’s as though he misses and cares for the bird even though he’d never known it and he’ll never get the chance to because the bird is dead and there’s no chance of it coming back. 

It’s in this moment that the man thinks that this boy is special; that he knows something more or is in on some secret that nobody else has been told. It’s as though he sees and feels things in a way unlike anyone the man has ever experienced. It’s intriguing, it draws him in and makes him want to know more. 

Before he can think twice about his decision, he’s crossing the street and stopping a few feet in front of this boy with big hazel eyes that seem to hold all the hop in the world. He wonders what this boy is hoping for and he wonders if he’ll get it. 

“He—Hello.” His voice is shaky and a little rough. He’s nervous; it’s the first time he’s really spoken to anyone it what feels like years. 

The boy looks up. His smile is bright and full of hope with just a tinge of melancholy. “Hi.”

“What are—what are you doing?” 

It’s strange, talking to people. This is just a young boy burying a bird in his front yard, but it’s the fact that he doesn’t do this that’s getting to him. He doesn’t get to know people and learn their names or ages or lives. He doesn’t risk getting close and forming relationships because, when it comes down to it, whether they mean to or not, everybody leaves. 

“He died,” the boy tells him. “He flew into the window and died and… well, mom says he went to heaven and he’s happy now, but I wanted to give him a funeral.”

“That’s nice of you.”

The boy looks down at the fresh dirt where the shoebox had been buried. “I don’t think he had any family.” He pauses, looks up to the sky while he thinks for a moment. “Well, He probably did, but I don’t think they know where he went and I think they must be real sad. I can’t help that, but I didn’t want him to be alone when he died, so I decided to be his friend.”

He can’t help but to think this boy is so wise beyond his years and he doesn’t even know it. It’s more than likely his first experience with death and he already understands more than kids twice his age. He’s caught hold of the loneliness and the loss. It may not be firsthand experience since this was just a bird he held no real attachment to, but it didn’t make the instance any less amazing. 

“What’s your name?” 

And there it is, the simplest question in the world; an opening. 

But it’s not simple. Not really. A name is so much more than a combination of letters given to a person as a marker for life. It’s more than just a label or an identity. It’s the beginning. It’s getting to know someone and setting oneself up for attachment. It’s vulnerability and trust. 

“My name?” 

The boy nods.

A deep breath. Then. “Liam.”

The boy smiles, eyes lighting up the slightest bit, and he’s missing few teeth but Liam can see where the new ones are starting to grow in. It’s nice and it’s innocent and even though he isn’t sure it’s the best idea, Liam thinks he’s made a friend.

“I’m Zayn.”

And there it is, the opening. The beginning of the end.

**+**

Against his better judgment, Liam makes an effort to visit from time to time. It’s never for too long and it isn’t every day, but he goes and they talk and Liam thinks it’s sort of nice to have a friend.

Zayn tells him about school and shares all of the things he’s learning. He talks about geography and the presidents and long division. They’re all things Liam knows a fair deal about, but he doesn’t interrupt whenever Zayn relays the information because Liam enjoys the way his eyes light up and sparkle. It brings him back to the moments he missed with his little sister. It gives him a chance to reminisce and bask in the youth he’d once lost. 

Zayn also talks about his family and his friends. He mentions a boy named Harry who’d just moved into town. Zayn thinks he might try and be his friend because Harry is shy and doesn’t have anyone to talk to. 

“I think he’s scared,” Zayn explains while he and Liam pass a ball back and forth in the park down the street from Zayn’s house. “The other kids are kind of mean. They all have friends and stuff because we’re in fourth grade now and everyone has known each other forever. But I don’t have a lot of friends either though so maybe me and Harry can start our own friend group together.”

Zayn grins and Liam can’t help but to smile back. “That sounds like a good idea.”

It’s strange though because Zayn is one of the nicest kids Liam has ever met and. He doesn’t really understand why Zayn wouldn’t have any friends. He’s funny and he’s smart and he has the biggest heart. But then Liam takes a moment to look at him, really look at him, and it all sort of falls into place. 

Zayn is different. He thinks differently than the average eight-year-old. He understands things on such a deep level. He sees the world in ways even Liam doesn’t think he’d be able to comprehend. 

So, while it’s sad, Liam can understand why Zayn would have a hard time fitting in. Looking across the yard, Liam can see the way Zayn stares down at the baseball in his hands. He watches the way he tosses back and forth between his hands. He looks thoughtful and a little bit shy and its one of the few times that Liam has seen Zayn actually look his age. Not wise beyond his years, but like a little boy who wants nothing more than to feel accepted. 

“But we’re friends though, right?” Liam asks, without thinking. 

For a moment, he wishes he could take it back. Reach out and shove the words back down his throat. That is until Zayn looks up, eyes going wide for the briefest of moments before his face relaxes and his lips slowly curve up into a smile. 

“Yeah,” he answers. “I guess so.”

**+**

Over time, Liam’s visits become more frequent. They go for walks where Liam lets Zayn talk because he enjoys the sound of his voice. He likes listening for the signs that tell him it’s changing, that Zayn is growing and evolving in a way that Liam never really got the chance to. Liam notices the way Zayn’s speech changes and his interests shift. He makes note of the way Zayn finds it easier to explain his thoughts and the processes that get him there. Liam looks at Zayn and sees a friend who will continue to grow ad learn and live and it makes him happy because Zayn deserves that and so much more.

And if the thought of Zayn growing up makes Liam a little sad, he pushes that thought aside because it happens to everyone. It’s a natural part of life. 

It all really hits him one day when they’re sitting by the river like they always do. It’s a regular spot because Zayn thinks the water is calming and Liam enjoys the seclusion.  
Zayn is propped up against a tree reading a book and Liam is lying in the grass with his eyes closed, enjoying Zayn’s voice and the quiet surrounding it. He cracks an eye open though and catches a glimpse of Zayn and he can’t help but to realize he looks older than he used to. Liam can see the way his face has gained a bit more definition, the way his eyes look a little wiser than before. Zayn is longer and leaner than he’d once been. 

Liam looks at Zayn and he can see that he’s aging. It’s slow, but it’s happening and it hits Liam like a train. 

And Liam is stuck. Stationary. Static. 

“What are you looking at?” Zayn’s voice is light and heavy all at the same time and Liam thinks that might be new as well. 

He shrugs his shoulders, closing his eyes again. This time though, instead of the peaceful nothing he’d seen behind his lids before, Liam is greeted with images of Zayn growing taller and filling out even further than he has so far. He sees Zayn graduating high school and going off to college and finding some beautiful person to spend his life with. Liam can see Zayn having a family of his own and raising kids in a quaint little home somewhere just outside the city. He can see Zayn growing being happy and growing old and the process just keeps repeating itself over and over like a broken record. It’s a cruel reminder of something Liam can never have.

“Liam?”

Liam’s eyes shoot open at the sound of Zayn’s voice. He forces a smile as he turns to face the boy who holds a gift he can’t even begin to be aware of. 

“Yeah?”

Zayn huffs out a breath of laughter that reminds Liam of when they’d first met and kept their meetings confined to games of catch in Zayn’s front yard. It’s innocent in a way that doesn’t match up with how much Zayn has grown. But then Liam catches his smile and he figures that maybe it still fits. Just a little. 

“Why are you looking at me so strange?” 

Liam sits up on his elbows, leaning on one to drag a hand over his face. He feels tired all of the sudden. Overwhelmed. “I was just… I don’t know. I’m just thinking.”

Zayn’s eyes grow curious. “About what?” 

“Doesn’t matter really. I just realized how much you’ve grown since I first met you. It just hit me, I guess. You’ve changed some.”

Zayn closes his book, making sure to save his page as he adjusts his position against the tree he’d been leaning against. “Everyone grows up, Liam,” he says. “I’m still the same person. I guess I just look different and I know more. I still feel the same though. I’m still me.”

Liam gives Zayn’s words a moment to settle, feels the weight they carry and how easily Zayn had spoken them. He wonders how Zayn can know so much and understand so little. 

“Not everyone grows up.”

“Maybe not you,” Zayn answers. Laughing in that way that matches his smile. “I swear, Liam, I’ve known you for almost six years and you haven’t aged one bit. It’s like you’re Peter Pan or something.”

Liam only smiles, forces himself to crack a joke that holds no real weight but makes Zayn laugh all the same. It’s in that moment that Liam realizes that he has to find a way to accept the fact that, as much as he wishes it weren’t so, Zayn really is just like everybody else. Zayn isn’t exempt from growing up and moving on. Liam can almost taste the day when Zayn will realize there is so much more than bitter old men hanging around a town that is neither too big nor too small, but still doesn’t fit; people like Liam who hang around praying for an end that will never come. 

Liam can feel it. 

It’s only a matter of time.

**+**

“My parents are throwing me a birthday party this weekend.” They’re back by the river, Liam teaching Zayn to skip rocks a few hours after Zayn had gotten out of school. “Saturday. Three o’clock.”

Liam shoots Zayn a look and hope Zayn understands it as a silent warning to drop the subject. They both know what Zayn is trying to do and what he wants and Liam isn’t sure if he’s ready for that. He knows its been seven years and they really should close enough that Liam going to Zayn’s birthday party would be a given, but things aren’t so simply and closeness, in this instance, doesn’t really matter. 

“I wanted to know if you would come.”

Liam sighs, running a hand through his hair. Zayn got it; Liam knows he did. Zayn just didn’t care. It’s all Liam can do to ignore the hopeful look in Zayn’s eyes because he knows he’s about to shut him down. It wouldn’t be right for Liam to show up to a fifteen-year-old’s birthday party. And even if that weren’t a problem, Liam doesn’t do that. He doesn’t meet families and cut cake and give presents. He’s in deep enough as it is with Zayn; he doesn’t need the added stress of a family to pile on top of that. 

“Zayn… you know I can’t,” Liam says. “I don’t know why you would even ask.”

Zayn huffs out a breath of air and moves to sit down in front of one of the trees lining the river. “I know, but… Why is it such a big deal? If you were having a birthday party I would go. No hesitation. I’d just be there for you.”

Liam attempts a smile as he watches Zayn dejectedly tear a handful of grass from the ground before tossing it out towards the water. “Well,” he starts. “When you’ve had as many birthdays as I’ve had, parties become a little unnecessary.”

It’s a lame, dry attempt at a joke and doesn’t do much more than serve as a reminder of everything Liam isn’t saying. Liam hopes it makes Zayn laugh, if only a little bit, or a least crack a smile that lets Liam know that things will eventually be okay. 

Zayn can hardly look at Liam which is surprising because it’s rare that Zayn wears his frustration on his sleeve like that. It’s wasn’t a secret, Zayn growing tired of not being able to call Liam up or see him whenever he wanted, of waiting for Liam to show up whenever he felt it was right, of their entire friendship resting against what made Liam comfortable versus what worked for the both of them. Liam knew that Zayn sometimes thought of Liam as selfish and inconsiderate of Zayn’s feelings on where they stood and how the dynamics of their friendship should work. 

Liam could count the number of times Zayn had actually said something on one hand and have fingers left over. Every single time had been a few words said in passing, things like “look who finally decided to shop up” or “thanks for gracing me with your presence.” Each time Zayn said it with a smile, although they both knew it was forced, and Liam never even bothered to acknowledge it at all because it was a conversation to difficult to have. 

But this was different. This was Zayn being unapologetically upset and disappointed. This was Zayn being open because he was too tired to hide his feelings. This was exactly why Liam didn’t do friendships because someone always gets tired; someone always leaves. 

When Liam doesn’t say anything Zayn looks up, his eyes slightly accusatory but mostly just curious and Liam wishes he could leave because he doesn’t think he’s ready to answer any questions.

“Liam…” Zayn pleads, his voice barely audible above the rush of the river. 

Liam shakes his head. “Zayn… I just can’t.”

“But Why? Can you at least just tell me that? Don’t I at least deserve that much?” Zayn asks, his voice suddenly loud and angry. But mostly, it’s just hurt. “Are you scared of my parents? That they might say something because your older? If that’s it, you don’t have to worry about it. They know about you, Liam. It’s not a secret.”

Liam’s mouth goes dry because he doesn’t have an excuse other than age. He’s older than Zayn thinks by a mile. It’s something so hard to explain and Liam simply doesn’t have the words. He doesn’t know how to tell the only friend he’s had in God only knows how long that while he cares more than he should, Liam doesn’t care enough to get invested. Or maybe he does and that’s why he refuses to do it. 

Liam just doesn’t know and that’s the whole problem. When it comes to Zayn Liam can’t figure anything out and it’s scary because Zayn is just a boy. He’s a kid with a beautiful mind and an even more beautiful soul and as scary as it is to admit, Liam thinks Zayn is just beautiful in general. Liam can look at him and tell he’s going to grow into something wonderful and amazing in ways people have never really seen before. 

And how do you say that? How do you tell someone you care about them in ways you’ve never cared about anyone before, but you still need to stay away?

“It’s not—” Liam stops himself before the words have a chance to come out; presses his lips so tight it hurts and shuts himself down like he always does because people are hard enough as it is and Zayn is a completely different game altogether.

Liam hates how he can look at Zayn and feel the betrayal boiling beneath the other boy’s skin. Liam is hiding and Zayn knows it. Liam had known going in that it was only a matter of time before it was all over. He was going to back out before Zayn had the chance to do the same. It was inevitable. 

And now Zayn is looking at him with eyes filled with anger and curiosity and the fear that he’d somehow done something wrong and Liam isn’t sure what to do. 

“We should go,” Liam says shifting his weight uncomfortably as he avoids Zayn’s eye. “You’ve got homework and I don’t want you getting in trouble for staying out to late.”

“Liam—”

“I’ll think about it, okay?” Liam says. He knows it’s a lie and he hates himself for it, but he just wants this to be over. 

Zayn eyes Liam carefully all to aware of Liam’s empty promise to think it over before nodding. “Okay,” he answers, pushing himself off of the ground. He starts walking back towards town. “Sure.”

Liam sighs, shoving his hands deep into his pockets as he follows suit. The walk back to Zayn’s house is quiet. Liam tries thinking of something to say, but nothing seems quite right. He thinks of taking it all back and agreeing to go just so he can see Zayn smile again, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He hasn’t been in a room full of people for years and he doesn’t think he’d be able to handle the stares and the questions. Liam remembers seeing Zayn’s parents around town when his mother was still pregnant. He remembers their smiles and kind eyes whenever they’d pass each other by. Liam isn’t sure if they would remember him or not, but he didn’t want to take that chance. There are so many people, so many questioning eyes that Liam always has to work so hard to ignore. He’s not sure he can endure hours of criticism; doesn’t want to look up and see the same fear and curiosity in Zayn’s eyes. 

Before he knows it they’re in front of Zayn’s house, the younger of the two stopping in front of the driveway and looking up at who is arguably his best friend with sad, hopeful eyes.

“You promise?” Zayn asks. “You promise you’ll think about it?”

Liam swallows down the lump forming in his throat, ignores the tight feeling in his chest. “Yeah,” he answers. His voice feels foreign; thick and not quite his own. “I will. Promise.”

Zayn nods, starts to step forward to hug Liam goodbye before thinking better of it and looking back to his house. His mother is peeking through the living room window. “Okay.” Zayn starts toward his front door before turning around and calling back loud just loud enough for Liam to hear. “Saturday,” he reminds him. “Three o’clock.”

**+**

Zayn waits.

He wakes up feeling hopeful. His mom makes him his favorite breakfast (French toast with strawberries and whipped cream) and even lets him have a fresh cup of coffee with it. His younger sister surprises him with a drawing she’d made of the two of them as superheroes, telling him he can add it to one of the comics he’d been working on. Zayn feels confident when he gets dressed and puts on the new outfit his parents had bought him the week before and his father even puts a pause on work for the day, opting to spend it with his son instead. 

All in all, Zayn is feeling good and hopeful and happy. He hadn’t spoken to Liam since they’d parted ways a few days earlier, but he was sure Liam had thought about everything and realized how important today was. It was more than just a birthday party; it was their friendship. 

Zayn had just hoped. Despite his better judgement, he was hoping Liam would think about it and say yes because Zayn was worth it. 

Three o’clock rolls around and all of Zayn’s friends from school start to filter in. The backyard is filled with music and food and party games. A few guys start a game of water pong, others are dancing and singing along to whatever song comes up on the playlist Harry had put together for the party. Zayn plays along for a little while, putting on a smile and laughing at his friends. He tries to stay in the moment when he’s opening his gifts, but he can’t help but to keep turning back to look at the front door hoping to find a familiar face knocking. 

Zayn hopes. Every second that passes him by his heart sinks a little further, but he hopes nonetheless. Three turns to four turns to five and by six o’clock, Zayn begins to realize that Liam isn’t coming. 

“You okay?” 

Zayn looks up from the cup of punch he’d been staring into to find Harry standing next to him. He looks concerned. 

“Yeah,” Zayn says, putting on a smile. “I’m… I’m great. Just tired, I guess. I’m not used to being the center of attention for such long periods of time.”

Harry’s face relaxes, although Zayn can tell he still isn’t quite convinced. He settles back against the wall Zayn’s leaning against though, bumping their shoulders together in an attempt to get Zayn to perk up. “I know you’re going to insist that nothing is bothering you – and that’s fine; I’m not going to pry – but whatever it is, just try and forget about it, yeah? It’s your birthday. You only get one once a year.”

Zayn looks back at Harry who offers him a thoughtful smile and a tip of his cup in a silent “cheers” and he can’t help but to smile back and feel grateful to have such a thoughtful friend. He thinks back to the first day he’d met Harry and how nervous he’d been about being in a new school and having to start all over again. Zayn thinks about how Liam had encouraged him to keep talking to Harry even though he was sort of skittish and shy at first. Zayn looks at Harry now and wonders if that had been the whole plan, Liam getting him to befriend Harry so Zayn would have someone to lean on when he ultimately went away. 

Harry pushes himself off the wall, patting Zayn on the shoulder as he heads back to join the party. “Cheer up, okay? Sad isn’t a good look on you.”

Zayn nods, watching his friend join in on a conversation with a few guys from their history class. He can’t help but to dwell on the fact that Liam always seems to be there even when he isn’t and wondering how that is and why it seems to mean so much. 

Zayn finishes his punch wishing it were something a little stronger that might help him forget. “Happy birthday to me.”

**+**

For the next week, almost every day is the same. Zayn wakes up, goes to school, and sits on his porch for hours after he gets home. He takes a break for dinner, but he goes right back outside until his mother forces him back inside for the night.

He makes up some excuse about needing the fresh air and not wanting to be cooped up inside, but he knows his mother doesn’t believe him. His father is too busy with work to notice. 

On Thursday, his mother tells him he needs to come back in. She doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, but he can wait just as well inside. Zayn heaves out a sigh and sulks in his bedroom. He settles for periodic glances out of his window, hoping for a familiar face to pass by. 

Zayn waits and he waits and then he waits some more. But Liam never shows. 

Soon enough it becomes clear that Liam is gone and doesn’t ever plan on coming back. Zayn begins to realize how much he really misses him. He’d never taken the time to think about how much he depended on him; how he would tell Liam all of the things he was too afraid to tell anyone else. Zayn shared things with Liam with the confidence that he would really listen and understand without judgment. Liam accepted Zayn for who and what he really was. Zayn missed Liam’s stories about the world and all of the places he’d been. He’d teach Zayn all of the history his teachers were too afraid to share in school.

Liam was Zayn’s best friend and now he was gone and that was really the saddest part of all. 

So, Zayn settles for a new routine. He wakes up and goes to school all the same but instead of racing home when the final bell rings, he stays behind to hang out with Harry. It’s strange at first, not spending his afternoons by the river reading books with Liam or tossing a ball back and forth in the park. Zayn isn’t used to cracking jokes with the boys and spending afternoons at the arcade. It feels forced at first, Zayn is quiet and laughs when it feels appropriate, but he doesn’t add much to the conversation. But then one day he makes a joke and all of the other boys laugh and everything suddenly feels easy. 

And while Zayn still misses Liam, it doesn’t all feel so bad. 

It’s a month later, a few blocks after Zayn had parted ways with Harry on their walk home that Zayn hears his name. There’s an old man sitting outside of a barbershop talking to a few younger guys that Zayn recognizes from school and Zayn catches Liam’s name on his lips. 

“Payne,” the old man says. “S’been living hear forever. I seen him when I was a kid and I seen him from time to time now and he’s the same as he’s always been. M’daddy seen him too and his daddy before that. Always the same. Always here.”

Zayn stops dead in his tracks at the man’s words and listens as the kids the man had been talking to tell him he’s crazy. “That’s impossible,” one of them say. “People don’t live forever.”

The man starts to say more, but they’re already waving him off and walking down the street towards the park. Zayn can still hear their laughter in the distance as they turn the corner. His heart is still racing because that man had said Liam’s name and people in town really didn’t know Liam. Liam didn’t have any friends outside of Zayn, he’d said so himself when they’d used to spend their afternoons together, so Zayn couldn’t wrap his head around how that man seemed to know so much. 

Zayn is curious and he’s pretty sure it’s a path he shouldn’t be taking, but he wants to know more despite the fact that the answers will probably only lead to even more questions. “Excuse me,” Zayn starts, his voice softer and less confident than normal as he approaches the old man. “I heard – were you talking about Liam?” 

“Payne,” the man answers, his lips curling up into a knowing smile. 

“Yeah,” Zayn replies, nervously glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “Liam Payne. Were you talking about him?”

“The man who lives forever.” His grin never fades as he answers the question. “You know him.”

Zayn looks down at his shoes, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he shrugs his shoulders. “Kind of. Not really.”

“S’okay,” the man continues. “I already know.”

“Know what?” Zayn asks, his eyes darting up to meet the crust filled ones before him. 

The man only laughs, leaning back in the lawn chair he’s kept posted in front of the barbershop for more years than he’d like to count. “M’daddy saw him and his daddy before that. Don’t know how many people have seen him. Alls I know is the boy is cursed with youth. He drank when he shoulda just stayed away and now he’s stuck. S’been here forever, Payne has, and he’ll be here forever more.”

Zayn furrows his brow. The man’s words make perfect sense, but there’s no way they could be true. “Because he drank? I don’t know – drank what?” 

The man shakes his head, a dry laugh that turns into an angry cough escaping his throat. He leans forward, wiping his mouth with his sleeve before crooking his finger to signal Zayn closer. His voice is rough and whisper quiet when he speaks. His breath smells like whiskey and tobacco. “The fountain, boy. He drank from The Fountain.”

And then the man tells him stories. Zayn takes a seat on the ground next to the man’s chair as he listens to all the stories he has to chair. The man tells his own first, then the ones his father shared and then his father’s before that. Zayn learns that Liam isn’t the quiet man from Bradford who lives alone outside of town because he’s quiet and shy and too stuck inside of his own head. He’s the quiet man who’s been here before the town was called Bradford at all and lives outside of it because he’s too afraid not to. Liam doesn’t have friends because they always leave and relationships are much too hard. 

“That’s all it brings,” the man tells Zayn. “Youth and loneliness.”

“Where is it?” Zayn asks more out of curiosity than anything else.

The man shakes his head, closes his eyes as he leans back in his chair. Smiles.

**+**

Zayn doesn’t sleep more than three hours that night because he keeps seeing The Fountain and Liam, looking just as he always has, drinking from it before he ever has a chance to grow old. Zayn spends the night thinking of everything Liam had ever said to him and how it all suddenly made sense. How he never talked about his family because he didn’t really have one anymore and how sad that must make him feel. Zayn thinks about how Liam didn’t make friends and what that must be like; what it means. Zayn wonders what made him so special, what it was about him at eight-years-old that made Liam change his mind.

And when Zayn wakes up the next morning, he gets dressed like he always does. Only today, after he drops his sister off at school he doesn’t meet Harry at the corner like he always does. He ditches his usual route in favor of the one that leads outside of town and toward Liam. 

He’d only been to the cabin once before and only because Liam had forgotten his fishing pole so they had to head back to his house to pick it up. Even then, Zayn never got to go inside and Liam had made sure to make the trip brief in order to prevent Zayn from getting too close. 

At least that’s what Zayn figured in light of all of this new information. 

Finding the cabin was tricky because it had been some time since he’d followed Liam there, but he manages to track it down within an hour or so. The lights are on and Zayn can see Liam moving around in the kitchen through one of the windows. Zayn can’t help but to think how lonely it must be for him to wake up each morning to an empty house only to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner for one on a daily basis. To spend his days by himself reading books he’s had to have read more times than he can count, taking walks down the same path he’s followed year after year after year. 

Zayn thinks about how much the afternoons they spent together must have meant and how much they must have hurt at the same time because, in the back of his head, Liam had to have known they’d come to an end and he’d be left alone all over again. 

Zayn begins to hate himself for getting so angry over a stupid birthday party because Liam had his reasons for not wanting to go. It wasn’t just the people, although Zayn was sure they played a part, it was what it meant. It meant another year older, another year closer to that inevitable moment when Zayn would have to leave and Liam would have to go back to being alone. 

Zayn pushes that all out of his mind as he takes a deep breath, closing the distance between himself and the house before knocking on the door. He can only imagine Liam’s shock when he hears the three raps against the wood and when he finally opens the door, Liam’s eyes go wide and his jaw drops a little before Zayn’s name falls from hips lips in voice almost too quiet to hear. 

Zayn just nods, his eyes dropping to his shoes before he forces them back up to meet Liam’s. “I… Why didn’t you just tell me?” 

Liam’s grip tightens on the door tightens and his mouth grows tight. He looks ashamed, like he wants to close the door and hide away like he always does. It’s all he’s really known how to do. 

“I—”

Zayn shakes his head before Liam can apologize. “You don’t have to. It’s okay.”

And it is. While Zayn had been angry before, he really wasn’t anymore. It’s still Liam. It’s the same Liam he’d known since he was eight years old. He’s always been there with the same smile, the same slow, thoughtful way about him. He has the same brown eyes that held a painful understanding of the world and what forever really was.  
Zayn looks at Liam now and none of that has really changed. Liam is still Liam; only older. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Liam tells him. “I just…”

He stops because there isn’t really a way to explain. He doesn’t know how to say he never meant to love Zayn. He never meant to see him holding that funeral for a dead bird and love him then and there without ever really realizing it. It was just his soul and his quiet maturity. It was the way he loved people so easily and silently in way that made Liam feel like Zayn might just understand. Liam always knew Zayn would eventually leave, but somehow he just felt it would be worth it. 

Liam doesn’t know how to say that he loves Zayn but wishes so much that he didn’t. He knows Zayn won’t mean to when it happens – and it really wont even be his fault – but they’ll eventually have to say goodbye and Liam isn’t sure he’ll be able to take it when that happens. He needed to leave before Zayn had the chance to do it first. 

“How long?” Zayn asks. 

Liam’s breath hitches in his breath at the question. He shifts his weight, his body feeling unbalanced despite the fact that he has the door to lean on. “250 years,” he says quietly, his voice filled with shame.” 

Zayn nods, understanding without Liam having to say anything out loud. He steps forward, forcing Liam to meet his eye and when he does, Liam begins to realize he doesn’t need to explain himself any further. Zayn gets it, just as Liam knew he would, and it’s okay. They’re okay. 

And then Zayn smiles, takes Liam’s hand in his and nods toward the couch in the living room. “Tell me about it.”

Liam does.

**+**

Things are easier without secrets and barriers. Zayn and Liam speak more freely, Liam sharing stories about his past and all of the things he’s seen, places he’s traveled to, and all of the things in history that have always fascinated Zayn.

Liam tells Zayn about his family and how he misses them so much it hurts. He talks about the chair in the living room and how his father use to sit in it most evenings smoking his pipe while Liam read from a book he’d picked off of the shelf. Liam tells Zayn about how he had helped his father build the cabin and how hard he works to keep it just to have something from his past; a reminds of where he came from and how he hasn’t always been alone. 

Zayn continues to grow older and Liam still notices, but there aren’t any more invitations to birthday parties or other milestone events because Zayn knows better. He asks about the fountain, though, about where it is and how it works. And Liam always shakes his head and tell Zayn it’s not important. 

“It’s a curse, Zayn. Just like that old man said. Live your life, okay? Enjoy it as long as you can. Don’t waste your time chasing fantasies like I did.”

It’s the same every time. And every time it ends with Zayn crossing his arms out of frustration because he isn’t sure if Liam is right. Time keeps passing them by and Zayn begins to notice things just as Liam does. He starts to see Liam for what he is. He realizes Liam is more than just a close friend and confidant. He’s tall and broad and has lips that curl around his words in a way Zayn can’t really describe despite his extensive vocabulary. But he wants to. Liam makes him to find the word or maybe create one that explained the way Zayn wanted nothing more than to know the feeling of Liam’s mouth pressed against his own. Of Liam’s fingers tangled deep in his hair. 

Zayn realizes, just a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, how in love he is with Liam’s voice and his wisdom. The way Liam remembers his family and how Zayn can feel how much he misses them to his very core. Zayn loves the way Liam laughs at his jokes and swats his hand away whenever Zayn tries to trace the lines of crow’s feet around the edges of Liam’s eyes even though they both know he’ll never find them. 

Mostly, Zayn realizes that he’s in love with the idea of Liam himself and while it warms his soul in a away he’d never felt before it also makes him sad because he’s only turning eighteen now, but in three years he’ll be twenty-one and nine years after that he’ll be thirty and it he’ll only grow older after that. Zayn will have to grow up and get a job and start a family and someday he’ll have kids of his own and send them off to college. He’ll get old and retire and then he’ll die and Liam… 

Liam will still be here, young and waiting for everything and nothing at the ripe age of twenty-three. 

Zayn realizes that maybe he doesn’t want any of that. Maybe he just wants Liam and his kind, earnest brown eyes that are filled with all the pain and joy in the world. Liam with that smile that finds his face whenever his eyes catch Zayn’s while they’re chatting by the river or near the fireplace at night. Maybe he wants Liam and his old poetry that he says only Zayn has ever really appreciated. Liam and the long talks they have about life and death and what they think it all means. Zayn thinks that maybe forever isn’t a curse like Liam says it is. It can’t be; not if they can spend it together.

**+**

“You should just tell me where it is,” Zayn says with a cheeky grin one day while he’s doing homework on Liam’s living room floor.

“No,” Liam answers, his voice firm yet still maintaining that gentle quality that makes Zayn heart stutter. He’s reading a book in his father’s chair but has it sitting, closed in his lap with one of his fingers marking his place. “Don’t get this started again, Zayn. We’ve been over it over and over. It’s not worth it.”

“But it is! I don’t see what the big deal is. The only bad thing about living forever is being alone and if we both… if it’s the two of us… I don’t know why you wouldn’t want that. It’s not a secret that I love you and I know you love me too and this way we can. Forever.”

Liam freezes. It’s right there. Neither of them had spoken it out loud. Their feelings had sort of just been this elephant in the room that they both chose not to acknowledge. But now Zayn has and it’s there. Liam can feel the pressure behind his eyes and fights the urge to cry. He can’t even think of looking at Zayn because, if he does, he’ll only realize how young he looks and how much he has to live for and experience. Liam just wants to make him understand what he’d be giving up and how Liam can’t bring himself to let it happen. 

“Zayn it’s – it’s more than love,” he says. “You have your whole life. You deserve your whole life. And that includes the end of it. It might seem like that doesn’t matter because you—I can see it. I can see your life for you and it’s beautiful and it’s everything I never got to have.” Liam breathes in deep, forces himself to look at Zayn in his entirety. “I do love you, but—love isn’t… it’ doesn’t…. you’re just so young. I love you too much to take life away from you like that. I won’t do it.”

They’re both quiet for a while, the only thing heard in their room being the soft crackle of the wood burning in the fireplace. Zayn’s face is cold and frustrated and childishly stony because he thinks, for the first time, Liam doesn’t understand; or maybe he just doesn’t want to. 

But then Liam is climbing out of the chair and kneeling in front of Zayn. He wraps Zayn up in his arms and kisses his hair, sighs when he feels Zayn’s breath hot against his neck. Liam feels a pang od sadness deep within his neck because he wants forever with Zayn too. He can see Zayn’s life with the fountain just as clearly as he can see it without. Liam doesn’t want to imagine what it will be like when he has to say goodbye and watch Zayn move through life; watch him go off to school only to come back and tell Liam all about some person he met in the dorms and how they spent the nights smoking cigarettes on the roof and swapping stories about home before kissing under the stars. Liam doesn’t want to think about diplomas and wedding invitations and baby pictures. All of the birthdays and Zayn’s gray hairs and the beautiful laugh lines that will draw their way onto his skin. 

Liam doesn’t want to think about these things because he wants forever too. He wants to have to imagine all the wrinkles and the physical representations of all the years that have yet to come. Liam wants forever just as much as Zayn does and it’s right there. It’s sitting right in front of him wrapped up and decorated with a bow. 

Forever is wrapped tight in Liam’s arms, but he loves Zayn too much to take it. 

When Liam’s hold on him loosens, Zayn pulls back and starts to speak. He starts to ask him once more, but Liam shakes his head and presses his lips to Zayn’s. It’s soft and easy and slow and Zayn thinks it feels a lot like Liam’s voice in the way it soothes his soul and makes him feel as though he’s floating. Zayn can feel the years of sadness and loneliness and how eager Liam is for more. But he can also feel how much Liam is willing to wait before he allows himself to take it. 

Zayn kisses Liam like his life depends on it, licks the seam of his lips, begging Liam to let him in so he can show him just how close forever is. How Liam could have his end and write a new beginning all at the same time. Zayn kisses Liam like he wants to do it forever; like he can and he will if only Liam will give him the chance.


	2. The Middle

When Zayn graduates Liam stands silently towards the back of the crowd. He counts the seconds and minutes and hours he’ll have left in his living room watching Zayn page through all books on the shelf in Liam’s living room; the short, measured amount of time they have left to share stories under thick blankets on Liam’s couch, the quiet, stolen kisses shared at the front door before Zayn goes back to the world outside of Liam’s cabin.

Liam stands, silent and proud, thinking of how little time they’ve had and how little they have left and how it all seems so wicked and short-lived.

Liam thinks of the acceptance letter Zayn had gotten in the mail and how he’d run all the way to Liam’s house with a smile on his face just so they could open it together. Liam thinks of the smile that seemed to take over Zayn’s face and how he went on and on about how he couldn’t believe he’d gotten in. Liam thinks of how he’d smiled back and while his happiness was genuine, it was also bathed in melancholy as he pulled Zayn into his chest and kissed his growing mop of black hair and wondered how many more times he had left to do that. Liam remembers what it was like to hold Zayn and how he never wanted to let him go.

Because that’s really the hardest part of it all, Liam thinks. Letting go.

Meeting someone like Zayn has to be the best and worst thing to ever happen to him because while Liam has him now, and maybe in some ways he always will, he’ll eventually have to push  
Zayn away. Let him go.

And Liam isn’t sure he really knows how. He’s not even sure that he can.

**+**

“They have the best music department,” Zayn says as he fiddles with the hem of Liam’s T-shirt. “And the studios are amazing too and I think I might want to take a few history classes too while I’m there.”

Liam hums and nods. He takes Zayn’s hand into his own and tangles their fingers together, thinks of how well they fit, and wonders how long it will be before Zayn grows out of him.

“I was thinking I could call you sometimes and tell you about them,” Zayn continues, squeezing Liam’s hand. “The history classes I mean. I figured it would be cool since you would have lived through most of it, you know?”

Liam scoffs and rolls his eyes, lets go of Zayn’s hand to pinch his sides causing Zayn to let out an embarrassing squeal that he’d more than likely deny later. Liam notes the way Zayn’s face flushes, memorizes the blush staining his cheeks, and thinks of how young and pretty the younger boy is. How lucky he is to have this with him. At least for now.

Liam sighs, leans back into the couch they’re sitting on, and shakes his head as he drags a hand over his face. “No….”

Zayn freezes, turns in his seat to look back at Liam with wide, questioning eyes. “What? What do you mean 'no'?”

Liam doesn't answer right away, searches for the words to explain but comes up painfully short.

“ _Liam_.”

“I love you,” he says and it’s the first time Liam has really spoken the words so plainly for Zayn to hear. Zayn has said them freely a few times now while they were wrapped up in each other in front of the fireplace or when they were huddled together out by the lake. Zayn has spoken them between kisses that always started innocently before leading to something more than either of them were quite ready for. More than Liam was ready to take and more than Zayn was ready to give up.

“I know,” Zayn replies, nodding his head as he reaches out to cup Liam’s cheek and thumb over his bottom lip. “But why—”

“You have to know I’d give anything,” Liam interrupts, his voice ragged and rough because telling Zayn this is the hardest thing. He isn’t sure how to tell Zayn to let go despite the fact that his heart is reaching out for Liam’s and Liam’s is reaching back. “I’d give anything to have a life with you. A life with a beginning and a middle full of adventure and kids and all of the happiness in the world. We’d grow old together and sit on the porch and watch the sunset and think about the life we had together and eventually we’d close our eyes and that would be the end. You have to know, Zayn, I’d give anything to have that. With you. I want that for you.”

Liam isn’t looking, but if he closes his eyes he can see the sadness and the anger in Zayn’s eyes. It’s a conversation they’ve danced around for months but never had because Zayn gets frustrated and tells Liam that "normal" doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter when it’s them and why can’t forever be enough for both of them.

“Liam—”

“Try,” Liam tells him. “Don’t think about me and don’t think about forever. At least for now. The summer will be for you and me. We’ll—I don’t know. It will just be us, okay? We’ll do whatever you want. And then you’ll go to school and take all those art classes and music classes and you can learn about history and…” Liam closes his eyes and he can see Zayn meeting new people and possibly even falling in love and realizing there is so much more to the world than their little cabin in the woods. He can see it and the words get lodged in his throat because as much as he wants all of that for Zayn – the kind of happiness his parents shared, the look in their eyes when they gazed at one another over the dinner table so glad they're sharing their lifetime together – Liam wants that for himself too.

He wants it with Zayn.

Liam wants a wedding and kids. He wants romantic evenings over candlelit dinners and school plays. He wants to tease Zayn about his graying hairs while Zayn makes fun of him when he starts to gain weight or when his eyes don’t work as well as they used to. Liam wants to see the joy in Zayn’s eyes when he holds their son or daughter for the first time and to celebrate birthdays and graduations and weddings. Liam wants to watch their children grow and share their lives. Liam wants a life of his own and he wants that life with Zayn. A life that Liam knows he can’t give him. The life Zayn deserves.

“I want you to try,” Liam says, his voice thick as he finally opens his eyes to meet Zayn’s. “Just try and if, when you come home, you still feel the same way about me and about the fountain and forever then… okay. But I need you to try. For me.”

It’s quiet for a moment. The only sound either of them can hear is the barely audible singing in the trees outside the open living room window. Liam can see the frustration in Zayn’s eyes but knows the younger boy understands that despite the confidence he has in his own choices, Liam needs this.

“Okay,” Zayn says quietly; defeated. “But we have the summer.”

Liam nods, presses their foreheads together, and closes his eyes again to breathe in every bit of Zayn he can and commit it to memory. “Yes,” he answers. “We have the summer.”

**+**

They have the summer.

They go fishing by the lake and forget their poles in favor of lazy kisses in the grass accompanied by whispered proclamations of love and adoration spoken in a language Liam never knew he understood. They share ice cream cones in town despite the discomfort all of the human interaction makes Liam feel. It’s worth it though because Zayn holds Liam's hand, gives it a gentle squeeze whenever he feels Liam tense up and when he catches Liam surveying the area a little more often than usual Zayn catches Liam’s eye and silently reminds him that it’s just them. Everything else around them is nothing more than a technicality. Liam holds Zayn close to his chest every night before he goes home, memorizes the slide of Zayn’s lips and the feeling hitch in the younger boy’s breath when Liam’s fingers brush the skin beneath the hem of his T-shirt. 

Liam loves Zayn wholly and ardently and he says so freely and openly until Zayn blushes and hides his face in Liam’s shoulder because he’s never been so happy.

_(“Thank you,” Zayn mumbles late one night while they’re sitting on Liam’s porch under the stars. Zayn’s parents are out of town for their anniversary, so he’s able to stay out a little later than usual to spend the night with Liam._

_Liam pauses, the hand he’d been using to pin-point a constellation he’d wanted to show Zayn (Perseus and Andromeda) falling to his side. “For what?”_

_Zayn shrugs, his head falling onto Liam's shoulder as he reaches out to lace their fingers together. “For today,” he says and Liam can’t help but notice how big and golden brown Zayn’s eyes are even in the dark. “This summer… Everything.”_

_Liam smiles, leans in a little closer to allow himself the pleasure of knowing the way Zayn’s lips fit so perfectly against his own. “Anything,” he says, his breath ghosting over Zayn’s cheeks. His fingers dance amongst the hairs at the nape of Zayn’s neck and Liam closes his eyes and tries to memorize the moment, the way Zayn’s skin feels like silk. “For you, I’d do anything.”)_

It’s a beautiful thing to be able to be with one another, Liam thinks, and to love without bounds. It’s something he’s wanted for so long and yet he can’t help but be so acutely aware of the mortality of it all; the fact that even though Liam has forever waiting ahead of him, he really doesn’t because Zayn is a few days shy of leaving just as Liam always knew he would.

It hits him hardest the night before Zayn is scheduled to leave for university. They’re lying on a mound of blankets in Liam’s living room, Zayn’s head pillowed against Liam’s chest where he’s pressing kisses to the thin cotton of his T-shirt. Liam sighs, thinks of Zayn’s hair between his fingers and the hot electricity of Zayn’s skin pressed against his own. Liam thinks of the heaviness of Zayn’s words and the way they crawl into his heart and nest inside his brain making them nearly impossible to forget. He thinks of how Zayn’s smile has a way of warming his soul and how his lips make Liam feel as though he were lighter than air. 

Zayn can hear Liam’s thoughts, or feel them, maybe. He senses the sadness in Liam’s bones like an ache deep within his being. With his ear pressed tight against Liam’s chest Zayn can feel his heart beating and the way it’s racing, tucked inside Liam’s ribs threatening to burst with how much the older man is feeling. All Zayn wants to do is calm him, to remind Liam that he’s still there for as long as Liam needs or wants him to be. 

Tentatively, Zayn pushes himself up to meet Liam’s eyes and keeps him there until their lips meet and the only thing left in the room to feel is them. Liam closes his eyes and allows himself to fall; to forget everything but the slip and slide of Zayn’s lips against his own and the firm grip of Zayn’s fingers in his shirt. He sinks into the gentle nip of Zayn’s teeth on his bottom lip, subconsciously slides his hands underneath Zayn’s shirt, and relishes in the feeling of skin he hadn’t yet touched before that point.

When they part, Zayn’s eyes are blown wide and bright and he’s looking at Liam in a way he never really has before. It’s a new face of Zayn’s that Liam wants to memorize. It’s new and yet so familiar because Liam already knows what Zayn is going to say before the words have the chance to leave his mouth. 

Zayn finds Liam’s hand where it’s resting at his hip and slides it up and under his T-shirt so Liam’s hands are splayed just over his heart. “Yes,” Zayn says quietly in a voice so sincere and honest and them. His hand leaves Liam’s from where their fingers were tangled beneath his shirt and he moves it to cup Liam’s cheek. Zayn leans forward to kiss Liam’s nose, his eyelids, his lips, soft and feather-light as a reminder that they are there together. “I don’t want to go and live a life out there without knowing what it’s like to have you. I want everything with you before I even try to want anything else.” 

Liam nods, their foreheads pressed together. He focuses on the warmth of Zayn’s heart beneath his palm. His breathing is ragged and his own heart is racing, but somehow the steady, sure beating of Zayn’s brings him back to earth. 

Liam watches the slide of Zayn’s shirt up and over his head. He takes in the smooth expanse of skin and notes the small blemishes and imperfections that make it so unmistakably Zayn. He reaches out to touch and notes the soft sigh that falls from Zayn’s lips before looking up to meet the younger boy’s half-lidded gaze. 

“Okay.”

**+**

They don’t bother with goodbyes because Zayn knows he’ll be coming back and Liam isn’t sure he can handle the lie of Zayn telling him so before he goes.

Instead, Zayn slips out the front door in the early hours of the morning when the sun is just beginning to rise and Liam is still sound asleep in front of the fireplace.

**+**

For the first few days Zayn feels lost and a little bit lonely. University is nothing like high school with its old, victorian style buildings and the way everyone seems to be a few chapters ahead in life while Zayn is left struggling to catch up. It’s almost as if Zayn is in another world outside of the one he’d grown up in. Like, instead of climbing into the backseat of his parent’s car and driving a few hundred miles outside his hometown, he’d boarded a spaceship and flown to a different planet altogether.

The people are nice though and a few of them even smile when they pass him by. The professors are happy to talk with him after class to discuss art and history and literature at length as though they aren’t holding Zayn’s grade and entire academic career in their hands. 

It’s all new and it’s different and Zayn can’t help but to feel like he’s floating. The excitement and novelty of this new life he’s making for himself makes Zayn feel as though he’s not entirely anchored to the ground. He’s happy to receive the warm hellos from strangers and to form friendly relationships with his professor’s but he also feels as though each time he opens a door he’s not sure if he’s going to find a new room to explore or a broom closet. 

Zayn is trying, but he also can’t help but to want to open the door to his dormitory and see Liam sitting in his father’s armchair reading another one of his favorite books. Zayn longs for the warmth of a fireplace and long nights spent stealing kisses under the stars and falling asleep to the steady rise and fall of Liam’s breathing. 

Zayn knows he can’t have it because he’d made a promise, but that doesn’t stop him from staring at the phone and wishing he could dial the only number he’d ever bothered with memorizing.

**+**

The house feels empty when Liam opens his eyes and watches Zayn quietly pull the door shut. He remained silent when he felt Zayn wake beside him, evened out his breathing while Zayn shuffled around beside him as he dressed. Liam kept still when he felt the soft press of Zayn’s lips to his hair. He hardly moved at the feel of Zayn’s fingers slipping through his hair.

Liam waits until he’s absolutely sure that Zayn is gone and there isn’t a chance of him turning around and coming back before he pulls the blankets up to his chin and sobs silently into the fabric. Liam cries and he curses the fact that the sheets and the pillowcases and the stupid blanket tucked beneath his nose still smell like Zayn and him and everything they made up when they were wrapped up and tangled within each other.

Liam gives himself a little less than an hour to feel it. He gives himself that time to feel the ache and the emptiness of his living room before wiping his eyes and drawing in a deep breath. On the exhale he climbs out of the blankets, gathers them up, and takes them to wash. It takes three washes for the smell to come out but after the third cycle when Liam presses his nose into the sheets, it’s almost as though the previous night had never happened. When the sheets and the blankets and tucked away in the linen closet Liam makes his way throughout the house and collects every single thing that belonged to Zayn and a few that bring back particularly strong memories and packs them into boxes. The boxes go into the shed out back and then Liam returns to the living room and sits down in his father’s chair. There’s a book sitting on the side table, so Liam picks it up and begins to read. Liam clears his mind and he reads and he thinks that one day, after some time, the empty feeling in his house will fade and the ache in his chest won’t hurt so bad.

**+**

Zayn meets Niall in the fourth week of school on a Tuesday out in the quad while he’s smoking a cigarette and Niall is playing his guitar in the grass. It’s sort of accidental because Zayn is only sitting under a tree picking at a sandwich he doesn’t really want and Niall is humming along to a song Zayn remembers hearing on the radio with Liam before he’d left for school.

_(“So, this is what you kids are listening to these days?” Liam asks, nodding his head towards the radio Zayn’s fiddling with at the kitchen table._

_Liam is in the kitchen tending to a saucepan on the stove while Zayn was supposed to be working on some reading one of his professors had assigned before the first day of class. He’d gotten distracted with the radio, however, because he needed the perfect mood music to get his reading done._

_“You sound like an old man,” Zayn answers, turning to Liam with a smile._

_“Maybe that’s because I am an old man,” Liam tells him. “Or did you forget that I’m well over a few times your age.”_

_“How could I when you say things like ‘you kids’ and ‘these days’ in the same sentence?” Zayn jokes, turning up the volume slightly on the radio. “It’s The Killers.”_

_Liam stirs the tomato sauce he’s been working on in the saucepan forms a small ‘o’ with his lips before taking the pan off the heat. “Sounds like noise to me.”_

_“Says the man who hardly listens to music,” Zayn says, turning back to page through the book he should have been reading._

_It isn’t long before he can feel Liam standing behind him and he’s leaning back into the arms that wrap themselves around his shoulders. Zayn smiles at the lips pressing kisses into the curve of his neck and Liam speaking softly into his ear “Why would I listen to music when I can listen to you?” )_

Niall’s version of the song feels a little different than the original, but Zayn likes his voice and the honest sort of raspy quality it has that makes him feel a little more at home. It makes Zayn climb to his feet without thinking so he can close the short distance separating him from the boy with the guitar.

“Hey,” Zayn says and now he’s nervous and wishing he’d spent some more time thinking this through.

“Hey there.” Niall’s smile is friendly and warm as his fingers continue to dance across the guitar strings while his eyes are trained on Zayn.

“I was just uh…” Zayn rubs at the back of his neck. “That song. What is it? It sounded familiar.”

“Oh?” Niall stops strumming and moves the guitar to rest at his side. “You know The Killers?”

Zayn shrugs his shoulders, shoves his hands into his pockets so he doesn’t have to worry about them anymore. “Kind of. Or not really, I guess. I just heard them on the radio a few times. I recognized the song.”

Niall nods. “Good band. I just got one of their albums on vinyl. Sounds way better that way. More authentic or something.”

Niall laughs and it feels easy and free in a way Zayn hasn’t felt in a long while. It’s sort of like Liam’s which has never failed to make Zayn’s head feel a bit hazy and his heart skips a few beats, but it lacks the heartache and the guilt that seemed to be weaved and intertwined into everything Liam did. Zayn doesn’t feel as though he needs to force the smile to stay on Niall’s face because Niall doesn’t seem to feel any guilt or reservations about being happy. He just is.

“Yeah.” Zayn thinks back to days he and Liam had spent dancing to Liam’s old records in the living room; remembers the moments when Liam would let himself go and sing to Zayn from across the room before racing over to gather him in his arms while they swayed and Liam finished the song in Zayn’s ear. He shakes the thought away before he has the chance to get lost and turns his attention back to Niall. “I haven’t heard a lot of their stuff, but I imagine it’s good. Probably better on record.”

Zayn’s smiling and shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other because he isn’t sure of what to do otherwise. Niall seems to catch on and when he smiles back it's just as genuine as the first time (maybe even more so) and Zayn is beginning to think that just after one month, he’s finally managed to make himself a friend.

“You know,” Niall starts, glancing over his shoulder. “I actually have the album and a record player back in my room. If you want, we can go up and listen to it.” He pauses. “I mean if you--- if you aren’t doing anything and you want—”

Zayn shakes his head. “No!” and Niall frowns before Zayn is scrambling. “I mean, No I’m not. I’m not—I’m not doing anything, I mean.”

And Niall grins something that makes Zayn’s insides swirl and he only feels a little bit guilty when he thinks about how pretty Niall is when he smiles.

**+**

Over time, Zayn learns that Niall is from Ireland. Zayn could tell by his accent but loves the fact Niall felt so compelled to share a few things about himself. He also can’t help but notice the blush that blooms on Niall’s cheeks when he makes an absentminded confession of liking the sound of Niall’s voice.

“You’ll get sick of it eventually, mate,” Niall says with a wink before stealing a French fry from Zayn’s plate and popping it into his mouth with a cheeky grin.

He learns that Niall’s favorite color is ironically green and that he hates leprechauns. He’s not sure what he wants to do with his life which is why he majored in business. (“It’s versatile and I guess it’ll do me some good if I don’t think of anything else”) Niall likes listening to bands after they get popular and fade into the background because then he won’t get sick of hearing them on the radio and he thinks parties are overrated but likes to go anyways because of the free booze and people watching. 

Zayn grows fond of learning about Niall, loves the easy, open nature of their conversations, and the back and forth that has felt effortless since day one. He likes picking up on Niall’s quirks, like the way he bites his lip when he’s deep in thought or the way he fiddles with the fingers on his right hand when he’s nervous.

Zayn doesn’t feel guilty until he goes home at night and thinks to call Liam and tell him all about it. He wants to tell Liam about school and his classes and how much he’s enjoying things now. He wants to tell him about Niall and how they like to spend Friday nights drinking on the roof of Niall’s dorm while they pass a joint back and forth, sharing stories about their lives back home. He wants to tell Liam about how he makes a conscious effort to leave out the most important part about his life back home because that part is just for them. They are theirs and theirs alone.  


The guilt settles in when he thinks to call Liam because that’s also the moment he realizes that Liam was right. Liam had known Zayn would go to school and create a life outside of Bradford. A life outside of them. Liam had known Zayn would leave and learn there was a whole wide world to see and people to meet and that he’d meet some boy or a girl at his school that would sweep Zayn off his feet and open his eyes to a world full of experiences.

Zayn feels guilty because he never wanted that to be true. Not really. When he closed that door to Liam’s cabin he’d never set out to move on and change and grow into this person that isn’t the boy who’d given himself to love in front of a fireplace. He’d had plans to go back and share lifetime after lifetime with Liam because while Niall is sweet and kind and funny and handsome he’s not Liam with the honest brown eyes that Zayn could get lost in and never worry about finding his way back.

But Niall is good. He’s good for right now and he seems to understand Zayn in a way that Liam never really tried to, or maybe never could. Niall lets Zayn want and he lets Zayn take and he doesn’t ever question. Things may have been easy with Liam and conversation flowed and Liam let Zayn talk and he really listened to what Zayn had to say, but things were never simple. They were always complicated and tangled and their words always held such meaning. Zayn had always wanted what Liam could never give due to years and years of hurt and trauma that Zayn would never quite understand.

Niall is good and he is simple. He’s young and fun and he’s free. Niall brings out a side of Zayn that he never knew existed. They drink beer on rooftops and Niall swears like a sailor and tells Zayn dirty jokes that make his ears turn the slightest shade of pink, but Zayn laughs along anyway because it’s easy and happy and free.

Zayn misses Liam, but Niall is good.

Zayn wants forever, but right now is just fine.

**+**

The first time they’re in Niall’s dorm because his parents are rich and paid for a single.

“I guess they feel like they owe me something,” Niall explains with a shrug of his shoulders as he toes off his sneakers and flops onto the bed.

Zayn shrugs off his jacket and hangs it over the chair in front of Niall’s desk. He sits down and picks up a pencil lying on the desktop, twirls it between his fingers, and watches it spin. “For what?”

When he looks up Niall has propped himself up on his elbow, Zayn notices the way he’s chewing on his bottom lip. “They worked a lot,” he says. “My dad made partner at his law firm when I was eight and he’s been pretty much non-existent since then. My mom’s job isn’t much better since she’s always flying from place to place, so I hardly see her either. It’s been me and a nanny for as long as I can remember and now it’s just me, so….” He gestures to the room. “I guess I have this.”

Niall doesn’t say it as though it bothers him, but Zayn can tell that it does. He can see it in Niall’s eyes, the way he purposely avoids eye contact and fiddles with the fingers on his right hand. Zayn watches as Niall’s eyes shift around the room, taking in all of his own belongings as if he’s seeing them for the first time. Zayn thinks it might be something like that; like they aren’t Niall’s things so much as they are reminders of everything his parents never gave him.

The guitar? That’s the lessons his dad paid some faceless instructor to give him because he just couldn’t make the time. Never mind the fact that Niall knew his father was in a shitty garage band back in his twenties just before Niall was born. It’s all the conversations they never had about music even though Niall had found his dad’s old record collection and realized they had more in common than either of them thought.

The giant book filled with the complete works of Shakespeare? That was a gift from his mother. She’s a bookworm who loves old literature. She’d given it to Niall as a graduation present despite the fact that Niall had never really loved to read in the first place. He kept it anyway because it was a gift from his mother and at least she was trying. He just ignores the fact that the only gift she’s ever given him personally does nothing more than serve as a reminder of the fact that she hardly knows her son at all.

“Why are we talking about this anyway?” Niall asks just when it’s starting to get uncomfortable.

Zayn feels sad at the way Niall’s smile looks forced and tight where it’s usually loose and relaxed and genuine. But even though he wants to say something to help, Zayn keeps his mouth shut because he doesn’t want to complicate things when they’ve made themselves out to be so easy. He and Niall didn’t get serious, they didn’t have the time or the energy to over-analyze and dissect each other’s feelings and childhood traumas. They’d much rather smoke a bowl and sweep their problems under the rug because life really is too short.

“Go put that record on while I roll this yeah?” Niall asks, climbing off the bed and moving to grab his half-empty stash from his sock drawer.

Zayn didn’t really start smoking until Niall. He’d tried it a few times in high school with Harry, but it never really became a thing because Zayn spent most of his time with Liam. With Liam, Zayn never wanted to be caught in some hazy existence where everything moved in slow motion and things felt blurred around the edges. With Liam, Zayn wanted the world to be clear. He wanted to see things as they were.

But Liam wasn’t here and after spending more than a few afternoons in Niall’s bedroom passing a joint back and forth Zayn realized that he rather enjoyed the haze. He liked the way everything seemed to fade until nothing was left but the bad jokes and a good friend with kind eyes, dirty blond hair, and slightly crooked teeth that Zayn kind of wanted to run his tongue over.

“We always listen to this,” Niall says when the record starts and he motions for Zayn to join him on the bed. “Why do we always listen to this?”

Zayn shrugs. “It’s a good album.”

“Doesn’t mean that we can’t listen to something else,” Niall replies, but he doesn’t say it like he wants to because he’s already humming along to the first track as he fishes his lighter out of his back pocket. ( _“She couldn’t scream while I held her close, I swear I’d never let her go”_ )

“Maybe it’s our album,” Zayn answers with another shrug of his shoulder and Niall looks up from where he’s lighting the joint between his lips. His eyes light up around the inhale and Zayn knows that was all that needed to be said.

Niall fits the joint Niall hands him between his lips and inhales. He lets the smoke fill his lungs and gets lost in a way that feels so much better than the lack of direction he’d had during his first few weeks of school.

A little while later they’re both lying on the floor and Zayn’s wearing this stupid smile and his fingers are brushing against Niall’s. It’s electric the way the tips of their fingers dance together. Kind of like static; like his hand is falling asleep just as Niall’s is waking up and vice versa; Kind of like Niall is the only thing reminding him that there are things to feel.

It’s kind of poetic, really, Zayn thinks.

And then Niall is rolling over onto his side and propping himself up on his elbow. His fingers are gone and Zayn isn’t sure if he’s awake or dreaming.

“Have you ever been in love?” Niall asks. “Like not… not the kind where you meet someone and you really like them and you think it’s love, but where you know.”

Zayn’s eyes are trained on Niall and he sees blond hair and blue eyes and the most honest smile, but when he looks harder the vision changes and there’s brown hair and even browner eyes and then gentle whispers of forever. Zayn sees a fireplace, feels the ghost of Liam’s fingertips on his skin the night before he’d left. Zayn can feel it all penetrating his haze and he doesn’t want that. Not here, so he pushes it out and away; saves it or another time.

“No,” Zayn answers noting a thickness in his voice that he trusts Niall not to acknowledge. “Not really.”

“Me neither,” Niall says. “But I want to. I think it would be nice to be wanted like that.”

Zayn turns to look at Niall and his eyes are bright and blue and shining. He thinks that it’s probably more than just Niall wanting someone to need him. Someone to hold and to kiss and to fuck. He thinks it’s more of Niall wanting something he’d never had before – a connection, maybe, because he’d always been on his own.

Niall is looking at him now and his eyes are bright and blue and different than they’ve ever been and Zayn thinks maybe Niall wants to find that connection in him.

The record plays.

( _“But then you took me by surprise. I’m dreaming about those dreamy eyes. I never knew. I never knew._

 _But it’s alright.”_ )

When Niall leans forward it’s slow. He’s staring at Zayn like he’s asking.

Zayn looks back and he doesn’t think he’d mind. He could try.

And when Niall is too close for Zayn to stop it from happening his lips are soft and a little bit chapped, but they fit perfectly in the haze Zayn has created for himself. He fits perfectly in the haze of sweet-smelling pot and Niall and Hot Fuss.

Then Niall is pulling away and lying flat on his back with this smile on his face that makes Zayn feel warm inside while he sings along to the scratchy music on the record player.

“ _Everything will be alright…_ ”

**+**

They don’t talk about it which Zayn is glad for because he isn’t sure what he would call what he does with Niall. It’s not love or anything close to it because without the hazy feeling Zayn has learned to create with a joint and an old record player, Niall’s hands don’t feel the same as Liam’s.

But Niall is still nice and he’s beautiful and he looks at Zayn like he’s seeing the world for the very first time and Zayn can’t help but think that it’s nice to be needed. It’s nice to know that someone can feel that way about another person so easily and fearlessly.

So, Zayn lets him.

**+**

“Sometimes,” Niall says, taking a swig of his beer. “I think I like you.”

Zayn grins and leans back on his palms, his legs dangling over the edge of the roof of Niall’s dormitory hall. It’s a little past midnight and they’re skipping out on a party one of the guys in Niall’s architecture class had invited him to. ( _“I thought about going, but I’d rather spend the night talking shit with you than watching a bunch of dumb jocks do body shots off of their female counterparts, you know?”_ )

“I think I like you, too.” Zayn moves to grab his own beer but realizes it's empty and sighs because that means he’ll have to get up and grab another from the pack.

“No,” Niall says. “I think I really like you. Like more than I should.”

Zayn knows Niall isn’t quite drunk yet. He has a few more to go before he gets a little past tipsy and he’s never been one to start speaking nonsense early.

“Hmm,” is all Zayn can think to respond with and he decides that maybe getting up for another beer might not be a bad idea after all.

“Is that bad?” Niall asks once Zayn returns. “Liking you more than I should?”

Zayn shrugs his shoulders because he really isn’t sure. He can feel Niall’s eyes on the side of his face and he doesn’t need to look back to see that they’re deep and blue and hoping. He knows that if he looks he’ll be greeted with someone who is young and kind and a little naïve. Someone who could – and probably will – grow to love him if Zayn will only give him the chance.

The funny this is, Zayn thinks he could grow to love Niall too if he let himself. It wouldn’t even be that hard and Zayn could be happy. He could live the life Liam had always imagined for him and have kids and grow old and laugh and live in the happy haze he’s grown to associate with Niall.

All he has to do is say yes; to try like Liam had asked him to.

“I don’t know,” Zayn says, finally. “Maybe… I don’t know.”

Niall shuffles a little closer and forces Zayn to meet his eyes. “Well,” he says. “I do.” And his breath smells like beer and mint and a little bit of weed. It’s sweet and Zayn finds himself wanting to taste it even though the flavor wouldn’t be all too unfamiliar.

Zayn closes his eyes, nods as he takes another swig of beer. When he opens them Niall is a little bit closer and he doesn’t smell all that different from his breath.

( _“I want you to try,” Liam had said. “Just try and if, when you come home, you still feel the same way about me and about the fountain and forever then… okay. But I need you to try. For me.”_ )

“Okay,” Zayn whispers and Niall is so close he can almost feel their lips brush together as he speaks. Zayn nods again and his chest feels heavy with something harsh like betrayal, but he also feels the rush of excitement that comes from knowing someone wants him so openly.

Zayn kisses Niall this time and it’s not like the first time in his dorm when they’d been high and a little bit jumbled up and lost. Zayn kisses Niall and this time Niall’s hands are cold and a bit damp against his cheek, they’re nervous and a little bit unsure in their slight sobriety, but it’s new and it's nice nonetheless.

“Okay,” Zayn says softly, not so much for Niall to hear but himself. “I’ll try.”

And Niall nods even though he isn’t quite sure what Zayn means and presses their lips back together like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted.

When Zayn closes his eyes the haze is there, but it’s clearing and Zayn can’t help but notice that Liam isn’t coming back to him as quickly as he used to.

**+**

Zayn visits home one weekend and it doesn’t really feel like home anymore.

Everything looks the same as it always has and his parents haven’t done anything to his bedroom. The people all act the same, smiling and waving whenever Zayn passes them by, and Harry is there just as shy and helpful and friendly as he’s always been. They still talk, but there’s less to go on about because Zayn can tell that even though Harry won’t say anything he’s grown a little jealous of Zayn’s big city adventures while he’s been stuck home at community college. So they grab a coffee and they talk about old times rather than the new and Zayn can’t help but to think that his town feels so much smaller, the people and the places too simple; like there’s nothing left to learn. 

It’s when he’s lying in bed on his old mattress, tucked under his old blankets that Zayn realizes how much he’s changed. He’s not the same boy who’d driven away in the backseat of his parent’s car. Zayn realizes that maybe he’s outgrown Bradford and there really isn’t much left here for him to do. 

The next day, when the soft knocking interrupts his morning coffee Liam can tell things are different the moment he opens the door and sees Zayn standing in front of him. He looks older despite it only having been a couple of months. Zayn has filled out a little more and his eyes don’t hold the same youthful innocence they’d had before he’d left for school. He doesn’t smell the same when he pulls Liam in for a hug and when he smiles, it still reaches his eyes, but that hopeful light he’d always had is gone. 

“Long time no see,” Liam says, trying for nonchalance as he takes Zayn in at arm’s length. 

“I know I shouldn’t be here because I promised to go away and tray and all of that, but I…” Zayn trails off, ducks his head as his cheeks flush pink and Liam catches the slightest glimpse of the boy he used to know. “I don’t know.” He sighs, digs his hands into his pockets, and looks up at Liam with a shy smile and a simple shrug of his shoulders. “I couldn’t come back and not see you.”

Liam notes the way Zayn doesn’t say “home”. He doesn’t mention it, though. “It’s okay,” he says. Then “You look good.”

Zayn’s shoulders relax, his smile growing at Liam’s words as he looks down at himself. “Yeah?” He reaches out, brushes some imaginary lint from Liam’s shoulder, probably as an excuse to touch him. “You too. Still young as ever.”

Liam shakes his head around a soft bout of laughter, looks back into the house. “You wanna come in?”

Zayn nods then stops himself because he remembers his parents are probably waiting for him back home so they can take him to the train station. He sighs, looks apologetically back to Liam. “I would but my parents--” He looks over his shoulder towards the path back to town. “I’m leaving back for school in a few hours. I just… I wanted to stop by to see you before I left, you know?” 

Liam nods, smiles something as small and sad as that empty feeling he’d gotten the day Zayn left the first time begins to grow inside his chest. He can tell just by looking at Zayn that things have changed, that he’s drifting. Zayn still looks at Liam like he’s the sun and the moon and maybe even a few planets scattered in between, but Liam can also tell that Zayn has found someone out there who can be the stars. 

“You’re happy?” Liam asks before he can stop himself. The question is simple but loaded and Zayn knows right away that Liam hadn’t really meant to ask. No matter what the answer, he was going to wind up slightly broken in the end. 

“Yeah,” Zayn tells him, reaching out to take Liam’s hand. He stops himself though, their fingers brushing before his hand falls back to his side. “I miss you though. Every day.”

Liam nods. “But you’re trying.”

“Yeah,” Zayn answers. “I am.”

“Good,” Liam says. His voice is thick and his eyes are shining when he looks back to Zayn with a smile. It’s this bittersweet feeling he’d known he’d have upon learning that Zayn had gone off and grown to love someone else. Zayn is standing right there, but Liam misses him already because he knows the boy he’d known is tucked away inside the blankets in his linen closet.

As if Zayn can read his mind, he steps forward and wraps his arms around Liam’s middle, pulls him close, and presses his lips to the skin of Liam’s neck. Against his better judgment, Liam hugs Zayn back and breathes in a scent that is still a little unfamiliar, but still has hints of home because it’s still Zayn and Liam thinks it will always be this way.

“I love you,” Zayn whispers into Liam’s skin. “I’ll always love you. Forever.”

Liam’s chest feels tight at Zayn’s words; feels their weight. “Me too.”

And his words are heavy and hard to swallow because they mean so much more. Zayn’s forever is short, finite, and Liam’s is stretched so far out neither of them will ever get to see the end of it. But he means it. Liam can hide the blankets away and spend his days reading or fishing or walking the length of the woods to keep his mind busy, but when the night rolls in and he’s settled in bed listening to the harsh silence bouncing off the walls of his cabin he will feel it. Liam will love him. Forever. 

When Zayn turns around to start his walk home Liam doesn’t doubt his words were true, doesn’t doubt that Zayn had meant them. But he knows that people change and while Zayn loves him, things may just have to start and stop there. Liam knows that while he may always be the sun and the moon and a couple of planets in between the way Zayn has also found the stars just as Liam had always known he would.


	3. The End

When Zayn gets back to school he returns to Niall and the scent of weed and citrus. It's a different sort of home that is nothing like the calm Liam had a tendency to bring to Zayn’s soul. Niall is lazy and fast and exciting and a little bit dangerous in a way that makes Zayn feel invincible; like he can do or see anything and he has all the time in the world to try it all out. 

And it’s ironic, Zayn thinks, that Niall makes him feel like he has so much time because that’s all Zayn had ever wanted with Liam. He’d wanted time. Zayn had wanted forever and everything that came after that and yet here is finding that very thing with a boy who could never give it to him. And it’s not because Niall didn’t want to so much as it was because he didn’t even know what forever meant. Not in the way Liam does. 

But Niall’s lips curve upwards as he cocks his head to the side and looks at Zayn as though he’s seeing him for the first time. And maybe he is because it’s the first time they’re acknowledging each other as something more than a hazy, smoke-filled room and the haunting voice of a man singing about how everything is alright. 

Niall smiles and his teeth are crooked and his hair is messy beneath an old beanie. Zayn thinks he’s beautiful. 

Niall's smile is warm and his voice is soft. “Hey…”

Zayn thinks he might love him without even trying. 

+

Zayn tries without effort. He and Niall laugh until their sides hurt while Niall plays with his hair and tells Zayn he loves him without hesitation. It catches Zayn off guard because it’s all so different than it was with Liam. Zayn feels free to love Niall without abandon while with Liam everything was careful and a little bit guarded. 

Niall loves Zayn in a way that can be a little too rough that serves as a reminder that Zayn isn’t the fragile young boy Liam had met during a funeral in Zayn’s front yard. Zayn relishes in it because while he’s young, a little inexperienced, and Niall is only the second boy he’s ever kissed and while he still dreams of forever with Liam, Zayn thinks a lifetime with Niall might be a good idea too. 

Because, in the end, that’s all Zayn has ever really wanted. 

Time. 

+

“I want to see the world,” Zayn says one day. There’s a joint situated between his fingers and his hair is a bit longer than it used to be and he may or may not be thinking of dyeing it blond.  
Niall is lying flat on his back, unabashedly naked, in the center of the floor staring up at the ceiling fan. He isn’t all that high -- not anymore -- but he’s blissfully fucked and that’s basically the same thing. Maybe better. 

“Then we'll see the world,” he says, turning slightly to look at Zayn. “We can do that.”

“Yeah?” Zayn asks. “You’d do that with me?” 

Niall grins (it’s sleepy and kind and Zayn loves him even more for it) and watches where Zayn is sitting on his bed covered in nothing but the thin sheet they’d fucked on with his back propped up against the wall. He looks at Zayn with eyes that make it feel like the first time; like Zayn is the most beautiful thing in the world, and nods. 

“I would,” Niall says. “I’d follow you anywhere. To the moon and back if you wanted, or maybe to Mars." He grins. "I’d even follow you to that asshole Louis’ house.”

Zayn laughs because Niall would make a joke during such a romantic proclamation, but the words still stick with him as he takes another hit. Zayn thinks about the weight of Niall’s words and how easily they’d left his mouth. He thinks about how hard it is to explain himself sometimes and how Niall can say something deep and meaningful without effort; like it’s all so lighthearted and simple. Like Loving Zayn is something that just is and going to the moon and back? That’s just a fact and there’s nothing more to it. 

Niall’s still smiling and he’s waiting because he realizes Zayn knows it’s true even though he’s not quite ready to say so out loud. 

“I’d follow you anywhere,” Niall says once more. Like he knows Zayn needed to hear it again. “As long as you’ll let me.”

And Zayn thinks that maybe it is just a fact. It’s that simple and there’s nothing more to it.

+

Zayn spots Liam standing far off in the distance, hiding, at his graduation. It’s almost the same as when Zayn had seen Liam the first time he’d put on a cap and gown. He’s hard to make out, but Zayn is sure he can see this small smile on Liam’s face that tells him that he’s proud and grateful that Zayn is getting this experience. But he can also sense that Liam is still a little sad because this is the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one that Liam isn’t going to be a part of. 

Zayn is going places that Liam won’t be able to follow. 

Liam stands back and watches and sees just how much Zayn has changed since the last time he’d seen him during that break freshman year a little over three years ago. He makes note of the blonde in his hair and the tattoos littering his forearms. Zayn looks beautiful and free and happy with the enthusiastic blonde leaning on his shoulder. 

And Liam misses him. So much. 

Zayn spots Liam and sees the small, melancholy smile on his face and everything washes over him like a wave. This whole time Zayn had kept Liam with him, tucked away in the back of his mind, trapped in a place where longing for someone who wasn’t there didn’t hurt quite so bad. 

Seeing him now brings forth an ache in Zayn’s chest that he’s worked so hard at calming, and now it just hurts. It makes Zayn question if forever with Liam is still an option and what that would look like. Would they think up little names and special endearments saved just for Liam? Zayn wonders if they’d develop a language, something like the one he’s learned with Niall, filled with barely noticeable looks and expressions only the other would understand. Would they have a routine? Liam washes the dishes while Zayn dries and hums whatever song he’d last heard on the radio?

This ache washes over him and all Zayn wants is time. Zayn only wants time and it hurts because he has so much of it. He has his whole life ahead of him and this golden opportunity for happiness standing right beside him, but it doesn’t feel like enough. 

Zayn feels selfish for wanting so much. For wanting to see the world with Niall; to fly to Africa and see the pyramids and to South America so they can dance and drink until they meet the sun. They might even see Australia and lie out under the stars smoking weed while they try to find constellations Zayn had learned about with Liam what feels like lifetimes earlier. Zayn has a chance at so much with Niall, but he’s selfish because he misses that dream of forever with Liam. He wants that more than anything in the world because even though the idea of experiencing more than he can imagine with Niall is enticing and bright, Zayn can still see an end. He can see them settling down and adopting a few kids and a dog and growing old and gray and dying thinking how wonderful and full of love their life had been. 

It’s bittersweet and a little beautiful and sometimes Zayn thinks it could be enough. 

But then there’s Liam and that ache and Zayn isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to truly say goodbye. And he can’t help to think that, if only Liam would’ve let him, there could have been a chance at him not having to. With Liam, there was a chance at a beginning and an endless middle filled with the tiniest skip of his heart whenever their eyes met and Liam smiled as though Zayn was the only thing in the world. Endless nights of Liam sitting in his father’s chair, book in hand, while Zayn realizes just how in love he really is and how that should scare him. But it doesn’t. And it won't. It’ll just be. 

Zayn smiles and holds up a finger telling Liam to give him a second so he can run over and say hello. He’s just got to tell Niall he’ll be right back, he’s just seen someone he needs to say hello to, and then he’s free to tell Liam everything. Zayn has thought about it and maybe he’s just not meant to have a normal life. A normal life would be perfectly lovely, but Zayn thinks he’s meant for something more with Liam. He’s meant for forever; it’s all Zayn has ever wanted. 

But Liam shakes his head no and, even though he’s not standing close enough for Zayn to see, Zayn knows Liam’s eyes are wet as his lips curve into an encouraging smile that feels too much like goodbye before he turns around and walks away. 

And Zayn thinks that Liam might not be forever after all; just a beginning, middle, and goodbye. 

+

They stumble upon a tattoo shop while they’re in Amsterdam. Niall brings up the idea of getting something to remember their trip; something that’s a little bit them and a little bit of this part of the world they’re experiencing together. Zayn smiles and kisses him quickly on the mouth because Niall has this way of making him feel so full. 

The guy working in the shop is tall and skinny and covered in ink, but his eyes are the brownest Zayn has seen in a while and they kind of remind him of Liam. It’s the way he smiles and greets them as the little bell above the door jingles when he and Niall step inside. Or maybe the way he walks with this purpose that says every single step means something. It’s not so much the way he asks them how they’re doing so much as it is the way his lips curve around the words. 

Niall answers for both of them and asks how the artist is doing in return. His voice is sweet and kind because Niall is both of those words and more. Zayn wanders off while they chat, his hand slipping from his boyfriend’s as he takes in the various photos and designs littering the walls. He stops when he spots a photo of a woman with a pocket watch inked on the back of her right shoulder. It reminds Zayn of the old clock tower he and Niall had come across in town a few days prior. 

Time, Zayn thinks. It’s always the seconds and the minutes and the days and weeks and months that get him. It’s all Zayn can think about. How relative it is, the way different lengths of it and all the tiny, seemingly insignificant moments can mean so many things. Zayn is reminded of how knowing someone for a day versus a week can make so much of a difference and while other times it may mean nothing at all. How a single second can mean more than an entire year. 

He’s reminded of Liam and Forever and the night that’s still tucked away in Liam’s linen closet and wonders if Liam still thinks about that too. 

“Anything you like?” Niall asks, crowding in behind Zayn and wrapping his arms around his waist. His chin is hooked over Zayn’s shoulder and he can feel Niall’s breath on his neck. 

Zayn settles back into Niall’s chest and sighs, pushing away the lingering itch for the arm’s so willingly holding him up to belong to someone else. “A clock, maybe.”

“A clock?” 

Zayn nods. “Yeah. Something like that one we saw in town the other day.”

Niall presses his lips to the crook of Zayn’s neck and gives his hips a gentle squeeze before backing up a bit. “And here I was thinking we’d get matching pot leaves or something to commemorate the red light district.”

Zayn laughs, his chest growing a little bit tighter because even though he’s sure Niall already knew, he didn’t bother to ask why.

+

“I miss you already.” 

The first time Niall says it, Zayn is just about to board the train back home to Bradford. Zayn just laughs softly into Niall’s hair and tells him that he’s being sentimental and silly because they’re still right there, together, and Zayn hasn’t even left yet. But then Niall kisses him hard on the mouth and whispers it soft and barely audibly into Zayn’s skin and it sort of hits him like a wave. 

The second time hits a little harder because, in that moment, Zayn can see their lives together so clearly. Niall waking up early and burning French toast and bringing Zayn cereal instead because breakfast in bed didn’t go according to plan. They’d play scrabble on the living room floor and listening to Niall complain because Zayn’s vocabulary is a little more developed and he actually enjoys word games. Zayn can see them lying in bed, passing a joint back and forth while Niall tells him stories about his parents; stories Niall has never told anyone else before Zayn.

Zayn can see them growing up and around and into each other and it becomes something he wants with nearly every fiber of his being. 

“Me too,” Zayn whispers quietly into Niall’s skin.

Niall doesn’t answer right away, just pulls Zayn impossibly closer because this is one of those rare in-between moments where Zayn is really present and with him and just as in love as he was at the beginning instead of being halfway there with Niall while the other half of Zayn was somewhere else thinking about time and long lost boys from his childhood. 

“Three weeks,” Niall says, finally. “And then it’s the rest of our lives.”

Zayn pulls back, takes in Niall’s reddened cheeks and baby blue eyes. He soaks in the honest smile that goes straight through his bones before tucking itself away into his heart. “Yeah,” he says with a smile he hopes is just as earnest and honest. “The rest of our lives.”

+

Zayn is surprised by how much he’s missed being home. His mother surprises him with his favorite dinner the first night he’s home and he spends the entire next day playing board games and watching movies with his parents and younger sisters. It’s nice and it’s refreshing and so very different from hanging out in cramped dorm rooms and spending his free time at parties or smoking joints with Niall. All of that had been nice and exciting, but being home brings a certain calm over Zayn that he doesn’t think he’ll ever find anywhere else. 

Being home also means being near Liam and Zayn would be lying if he told himself that didn’t make him more than a little bit happy. 

Zayn visits Liam the first day he has a full twenty-four hours to himself. He knocks once, twice, three times, and then Liam is there standing in front of him looking the same as he had the first day Zayn had met him. 

And Zayn, well, Zayn looks different. If Liam hadn’t known any better he might not have recognized him. Zayn’s hair is a bit longer and he has more tattoos than he did before and he’s taller and a little bit leaner than he’d been at graduation. If there was a word for it, Liam might say that Zayn appears worldlier; like he’s seen a few things and experienced more than Liam ever could have taught him here in Bradford and, as a result, Zayn has become a slightly different person. 

“Liam,” Zayn says, his mouth wrapping around the name out loud for the first time in what feels like forever. He smiles and tilts his head to the side because it really is amazing how much Liam hasn’t changed. How his eyes are still that same chocolate brown that appears so much older than the rest of him. The way he stands so strong and yet has this way of looking so undeniably fragile. 

“You’re home,” Liam replies. His tone is serious and a bit wary and he looks as though he’s afraid that none of this is real and Zayn is just some mirage his mind has conjured up in order to trick himself into feeling better. Liam sounds unsure because if he’s really being honest with himself he misses Zayn more than he’ll ever be able to put into words. If he were to be truly selfish, Liam would pull Zayn into his arms then and there and never let go. He’d show Zayn the fountain and let him drink like he’s always wanted to just so Liam would never have to say goodbye again.

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes out with a shrug as he shoves his hands into his pockets. His voice is easy and carefree in a way that Liam can tell comes from being away for so long. Zayn had always been relaxed in a way Liam never could be, but this was different. This was Zayn living and moving on to places Liam would never follow. 

He tries no to let the disappointment show. This is what Liam had been telling Zayn to do since the beginning. To live his life and not limit himself to one thing or one person. He wanted Zayn to grow and experience things, to fall in love and start a life and be something so much bigger than a life hiding away in a cabin just outside of Bradford. Liam knows without Zayn having to tell him that he’s going to leave in a few weeks and move on with the boy he’d met in college. The one with the blond hair and the smile that never failed to reach his eyes whenever he looked at Zayn. And while Liam was a little sad (and a little jealous), he was happy because this is all he’d ever asked Zayn to do. 

“That’s great,” Liam says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Even though Liam had hoped he wouldn’t, Zayn notices the insincerity and his own smile falters as he takes Liam in a little further. He makes note of the slight slump to Liam’s shoulders and the lingering look of defeat in his eyes just before Liam adjusts his mask and smiles a little brighter even though Zayn can tell it isn’t all the way genuine. 

“I missed you,” Zayn says. It’s true, in every sense in the world no matter how much it hurts Liam to know it. Just seeing Liam in the flesh makes Zayn feel as though he’s going to burst and forget how desperately he’d wanted to make a life with Niall. All Zayn wants is to touch Liam and know that he’s real and that they’re together, even if it’s just for that moment. 

Liam nods, his face going a little pink as he stares down at his feet. “Yeah,” he replies. “I’ve missed you, too.” Adds. “You’ve changed some since I’ve seen you last. You’re all grown up.”

Zayn looks down at his clothes, grins silently to himself as he glances at the tattoos littering his forearms. His mother had been less than thrilled when she’d first seen them and he chuckles softly at the memory. Zayn has changed and he knows it. He’s known it for a while and, if he’s being honest, it feels good to know he’s no longer the same person he’d been when he’d left for college. He doesn’t even feel like he’s the same boy he was when he’d visited home for the first time. It seems as though every time Zyan comes back to Bradford he feels different and bigger like he’s grown out of things even though it all feels familiar and warm. Bradford is still home, but it’s no longer Zayn’s. 

Time has a way of changing things and the clock on Zayn’s lower back serves as a permanent reminder of that fact. 

“I have,” Zayn says looking back towards Liam. He sees the ever-constant man in front of him and thinks that there are some things that even time can’t alter or erase. Liam is the time etched into Zayn’s skin, permanent and never changing. 

“That’s good,” Liam replies. He means it even though the sharp pang in his chest tries to tell him otherwise. Liam thinks about asking Zayn to stay, that maybe university was enough and the growth he’s experienced is all he needs. But then Liam is reminded of the last time they’d really seen each other when Zayn wasn’t even halfway through school and Liam realized that maybe he wasn’t the only thing in Zayn’s universe. Liam no longer has the luxury of selfishness because he’s led Zayn into the stars and there’s so much more he wants to experience and explore. 

It’s quiet for a moment before Zayn chuckles at Liam’s obvious nerves and nods towards the inside of the house. “Mind if I come in?” 

Liam glances back inside and rubs at the back of his neck before stepping aside to allow Zayn into the house. His nerves make him feel uneasy because things had always been so easy between them before Zayn had left and Liam became preoccupied with missing him and constantly searching for ways to let him go. They’d had their issues, but nothing had ever been forced. 

Zayn steps inside and his eyes slip shut as he breathes in the familiar scent of what he was always sure would be home. Nothing had changed since he’d left aside from a few new books scattered across the coffee table along with a few mugs and a pair of slippers sitting next to the couch. 

“I’ve missed this,” Zayn says, turning to face Liam who is still standing in the doorway.  
Being here. Seeing you.”

“Yeah?” Liam asks, and he hates the hopeful tone of his voice. 

Zayn crosses the room and drags his fingers over the cover of one of Liam’s newer books. “I’ll always miss you, Liam.”

“Me too.”

It’s jarring, the similarity in Liam’s choice of words. It reminds Zayn of Niall and the train station and how sure he had been of the lifetime he’d wanted. The ease of french toast and lazy weekends and weed. How much he’d wanted to grow up with that boy because it wasn’t so scary knowing Niall would be there to do it all with him. Me too. It’s what Zayn had said back when he was missing Niall despite the fact that they were still wrapped around each other at the train station. It’s still true, Zayn thinks. Everything he wants with Niall still rings true, it’s just that a part of Zayn will always be here as well missing Liam despite the fact that he’s always been so close even when he’s far away. 

“I was going to make myself something to eat,” Liam says, breaking the silence and nodding toward the kitchen. “Wanna join me?”

There’s a pause, a moment where time seems to stop and Zayn thinks he can see Liam clearly for the first time in what feels like forever. Clearer than the summer they had before college and all the times before and after and in between. Liam is just there and he’s open and he’s offering a moment and it’s time. 

Time is all Zayn has wanted and Time is what they have and Zayn figures he might as well stop wondering how much is left instead of enjoying it. At least for now. 

So he smiles and notes the way Liam’s shoulder’s relax and the nerves leave his body as they fall back into the ease they’d only ever had with each other. 

“I’d love to.”

+

Three weeks isn’t enough. 

They spend afternoons at the river like they used to: Liam leaned up against a tree and Zayn seated between his legs with an old book they used to love. They flip through the pages stopping at their favorite parts and reading them over again for a good laugh or a short discussion about how amazing the writing is. 

Liam silently notes how much more in-depth Zayn dives into the writing, the subtle nuances of his growth, and savors them in silent admiration of the man he’s growing into. Liam pulls Zayn closer, presses a kiss into his hair while he goes on about one of his favorite passages, and doesn’t count the days, minutes, seconds, hours until he has to let him go. 

They lie in the grass trading illicit kisses that Zayn doesn’t really want to talk about because talking about it only serves as a reminder that Niall is miles and miles away in Ireland and Zayn can only imagine the sadness that will fill those pretty blue eyes if he were to ever find out. 

But Liam's lips are still soft and just a little bit chapped and Zayn loves the way his hands feel griping just this side of too tight against his hips like Liam is afraid Zayn will float away if he even begins to let go. Zayn can’t help but notice how different it is from the way Niall holds him. With Niall, it’s simple and easy. Niall holds Zayn like he’s something he simply wants to keep as long as Zayn will let him. Like they are there and they’re together and that’s all there is to it. 

Liam holds Zayn not only like he wants him, but like he isn’t allowed. It’s as though the time they do have is borrowed or stolen and at any moment Zayn will disappear. Liam holds Zayn as though he’s afraid and he’s needy and he’s trying to hold onto whatever he can while he still has the chance. 

Zayn doesn’t know what to do aside from holding Liam back, gentle and sure. He doesn't say so much in words as he does with his actions in telling Liam that he’s here and isn’t leaving him. That even though there’s a boy somewhere in Ireland who has stolen a little bit of his heart, Liam still has a special place that can never be filled by another person. There’s a place inside of Zayn that was made just for him. 

It’s not until one night when they’re lying naked in front of the fireplace on the blankets Liam had stashed away in his closet that Zayn feels the need to say so out loud. Liam is hovering over Zayn with their faces only a few short inches apart and he just feels so close and he’s looking at Zayn as though he’s trying to memorize every new detail of his face just in case the moment ends too soon and Liam will be left with nothing but his memories.

“I love you,” Zayn says. “Forever.”

Liam is frozen, hovering that same few inches over Zayn. It’s warm and their bodies are covered in a light sheen of sweat when Zayn reaches out to pull him closer, Liam burying his face into the crook of Zayn’s neck where he can breathe in this new scent of man that has entangled itself into the smell of the boy he’d grown to love before. 

“I know,” Liam murmurs almost too quiet for Zayn to hear. “Me too.”

It’s not until Zayn wraps his legs around Liam’s torso, bringing them impossibly closer together that Liam begins to move. Zayn thinks it’s as close to heaven he’s ever going to get here on earth, so unlike it is with Niall where the room is filled with soft exhales of air and muffled giggles and a near-forgotten joint sitting in an ashtray a few feet away. Liam is like poetry, hands dragging up and down the lines of Zayn’s body, tracing the lines of the tattoos littering his arms and the numbers etched into the clock tower on his back, and punctuated by a barely audible “ _fuck_ ” that should sound profane but sounds nothing short of blissful and sweet to Zayn’s ears. 

“Closer,” Zayn whispers. He’s not sure how the word makes it out of his mouth because Zayn feels as though he can barely breathe. Everything is too much and not enough as Liam pushes himself further into Zayn’s body. It’s rough and desperate and bruising, but it’s also slow and sure and everything Zayn has grown to associate with Liam. 

Zayn’s body tenses up when Liam’s pace falters a bit and he thrusts in just right. He locks his legs around Liam’s waist a little tighter and loops his arms around Liam’s neck just to make sure he can’t go anywhere despite the fact that Zayn knows Liam wants nothing more than to stay right where he is. 

“Want to feel you closer,” Zayn whispers into Liam’s ear, his breath warm and sending shivers down Liam’s spine like phantom fingers dancing over his skin. “Don’t leave me,” Zayn continues, his voice just this side of begging. “Don’t make me leave.”

Liam doesn’t answer, just presses himself further into Zayn with a choked off sob that gets lodged in his throat because he’s so close to what he’s been denying himself for so long and he’s so close to just giving in. 

Liam just presses in and holds Zayn as close to his heart as he can possibly get as he repeats the words more for himself than anyone else. “I love you. I love you. I love you. Forever.”

+

It’s when the three weeks are almost over that Zayn really begins to feel uneasy. 

Niall has been texting him pretty much every day. Sometimes the messages are short and sweet, just a simple “ _I love you_ ” with a smiley face attached to the end because Niall is simple and cute in a way that makes Zayn’s stomach flutter. Other times the messages are longer, though. Niall sends short anecdotes about his day or asks Zayn a question that really makes him think. These are the ones that make Zayn love Niall even more because it’s a reminder that he’s so much more than the sweet, simple boy he appears to be. Niall is just as deep and introspective as Zayn and it isn’t only when they’re smoking a bowl and feeling extra profound that Zayn can spend hours talking to Niall about anything and everything. It might not be the same as it is with Liam, but it’s nice and Niall has a way of sneaking in little jokes or nudging Zayn’s shoulder or stealing kisses during the short lulls in conversation that make it inexplicably them. 

It’s simple and it’s them and it’s nice and it’s exactly what makes Zayn ache.

Niall has a way of loving Zayn too easily. Niall seems to love Zayn as freely and easily as Zayn loves Liam. And it’s not as though loving Niall is hard because it’s actually kind of effortless. Niall is just… simple. 

A life with Niall would be simple and easy and happy. They’d get a dog and Niall would name him something cute like Skip or Lucky. They would go on a few trips and finish seeing the world and lock themselves away in a room to smoke and listen to The Killers just to feel stupidly nostalgic and in love the way they did in college. Eventually, maybe a few years down the line, they would adopt a few kids or maybe set something up with a surrogate and they would be so happy. 

But in between all of that, when the nights were quiet and Niall was asleep or maybe when Zayn had a spare moment to himself, he’ll think of Liam and all the afternoons he might have spent by the lake or making love in front of the fireplace. He’ll miss the intensity of feeling so consumed by another person. 

It’s when these thoughts cross his mind that Liam notices. Zayn could never hide anything from Liam, not really. Liam has this way of knowing, so Zayn doesn’t even try to cover up the faraway look in his eyes when he realizes that three weeks isn’t enough and their snapshot into forever is almost over. 

“You leave soon,” Liam says.

They’re sitting in the living room, Liam in his father’s armchair and Zayn across from him on the couch flipping through an old book of poetry from Liam’s bookshelf. 

“I’m supposed to,” Zayn corrects him. 

“You will.”

“So you want me to?” Zayn asks. He can’t help the accusatory tone of his voice, but he wants to know despite how afraid he is of Liam’s answer.

Liam shakes his head, doesn’t avoid Zayn’s eyes as he answers. “You know I don’t. I could never want you to. Not really.”

“Are you going to stop me?”

Liam’s lips form a straight line. He drags a hand over his hair as he shakes his head and, with a defeated shrug of his shoulders, says “No.”

That’s when it hits him. The realization that it’s over crashes over Zayn’s body as he feels himself go numb. Liam is never going to fight him on it, never going to make Zayn stay. It’s childish, Zayn thinks, to want that so badly. To want Liam to throw a fit and put his foot down and beg Zayn to stay. Zayn can feel the space he held so dearly for Liam begin to shatter at the realization that, as fiercely as Liam loves him, it isn’t enough to ask him to stay. 

“What if I wanted you to?” Zayn asks, closing the book and setting it down on the couch beside him. He can feel the pressure building behind his eyes as he wills himself not to cry, hates how small and childish his voice sounds despite his age. 

Liam shrugs, looks down and away from Zayn’s gaze. “I don’t think you’d be going if that were the case.”

It’s a blow that shocks Zayn to his very core because as much as he wants to run off with the exciting Irish boy with pretty blue eyes that loves Zayn so much it hurts, if Liam were to ask him to stay right then and there Zayn would say yes in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t even think twice, and he’s almost certain Liam knows that. 

“You know that’s not true,” Zayn replies flatly. “You know I’d be right here forever if you’d stop keeping everything you want in life at arm’s length.”

Liam frowns. “All I want is for you to be happy. To have a happy, normal life.”

Zayn scoffs, shaking his head as he folds his arms over his chest. As much as Zayn loves how much Liam cares, it’s one of the things that frustrates him the most. Liam’s selflessness is ultimately going to be their undoing because he can’t put his pride in knowing what’s best aside long enough to let Zayn in. 

“You don’t…” Zayn shakes his head, wiping at the few tears that escape his eyes. “I’m happy with _you_ , Liam. I want to stay with _you_ , but you just… you keep pushing me away over and over and over again. And then you let me in for two fucking seconds only to shove me right back out." 

“I’m not pushing you away.”

“But you are!” Zayn shouts, pushing himself up from his seat. He hates the shocked expression on Liam’s face, but can’t help the burst of frustration. “I come home and you’re not cold, but you’re distant. You let me in here and there for a few moments at a time but it never amounts to anything more than the lies you tell me at night in front of the fireplace because you always go right back to shutting me out.”

“You know they're not lies,” Liam says, his voice rough and earnest and hurt. 

“How could they not be when you’re all but begging me to be with a boy you obviously don’t want me to be with?”

Liam’s silence is answer enough as Zayn sighs, carding an angry hand through his hair. He knows the argument isn’t going to amount to anything because Liam is stubborn and thinks he knows best. Zayn has never questioned whether or not Liam loves him and he knows doing so out loud only cuts the older man to the core, but he can’t help the frustration he feels at Liam’s self-inflicted loneliness. Zayn can only imagine how much Liam hurts on a daily basis. How much he misses his family and how isolated he must feel in his immortality as he watches everyone move through the many stages of life while he’s stuck at twenty-three. Zayn knows Liam is only trying to save him the pain and heartache he feels on a daily basis, but Zayn also feels that’s not really a choice Liam has the right to make for him. 

“Is that it then?” Zayn asks, defeated. “Is this it?”

Liam doesn’t answer, just sits in his chair staring off into an empty fireplace. The silence is worse than anything Liam could have said because it means he’s given up and they never even stood a chance before they started. 

Zayn sighs, ignores the way his heart tightens in his chest, and nods in answer to his own question. 

“Okay, then.”

There’s no “I love you” or “forever” like there was before. Not even a goodbye. Just the quiet shuffle of Zayn’s footsteps and the near-silent click of the door as he shut it on his way out. 

+

Niall meets Zayn in Bradford and it’s bittersweet. 

Zayn tries to be completely happy, but he can’t help but feel as though a part of him has gone missing. When Niall holds him, Zayn doesn’t feel quite as whole or as warm as he had before when Niall kisses him. When Niall breathes “I missed you” into his skin, it doesn’t go straight to Zayn’s bones the way it used to before he came home and felt one of the single most important spaces in his world come crashing down. The space in his heart that Liam used to occupy just feels empty now, but Niall is here and he’s honest and he loves him and Zayn can’t help but to love him back as he presses his cheek into Niall’s hair and mumbles “me, too.”

Niall pulls back and he’s grinning as he presses his lips to Zayn’s. It’s been too long since he’s tasted the lingering flavor of marijuana on Niall’s tongue, but he also tastes a bit like bubblegum and it makes Zayn laugh because he can see him blowing bubbles until they pop as he drives down the highway toward Bradford. 

It’s nice and it’s simple and it’s Niall and Zayn thinks that it could be enough.

It’s nothing like the image of Liam seated in his living room hating himself for loving a boy who made the mistake of loving him back. Zayn thinks it might even be better because thinking about Niall doesn’t hurt. It isn’t love laced with complexity and pain. It’s just love and love alone. Niall would go to the end of the world and back if Zayn asked him too and Zayn thinks that could be enough. 

“I saw the apartment,” Niall tells him, breaking Zayn from his thoughts. His smile is nervous and happy as he takes a step back and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Zayn recognizes the habit as something Niall does when he’s feeling shy and a little bit insecure because he’s not sure if he and Zayn or on the same page, but Niall is hoping. 

It’s in these moments that Zayn is sure that Niall knows. That he knows Zayn hasn’t always been right there and has always kept a part of himself tucked away where Niall could never find it. It’s in these moments that Zayn loves Niall even more because Niall was still there, still hoping.

“Yeah?”

Niall nods and kicks at a lonesome rock near his shoes. “Mmhm. It’s not too far from here, so I…. I just kind of stopped by on my way down.”

“How was it?” Zayn asks.

Niall can’t help his smile when he looks up to meet Zayn’s eye. “It’s kind of shitty and the neighbors are a little rude, but it has this kick-ass roof and the view from the living room is actually pretty amazing.” He pauses and looks down at his shoes as a blush fills his cheeks before he sneaks a peek at Zayn through his lashes. “It’s… It’s us.” 

It’s then that Zayn sort of gets it. 

Zayn has always understood why Liam wanted this for him in words. Zayn knew Liam wanted him to have something normal with someone who loved and understood him. Liam wanted Zayn to have kids and to grow old and have a life that was happy and full. Zayn understood all of this in words, but not so much in feeling and here, in this moment, he thinks he might. 

Zayn knows he and Liam would have a long, never-ending beautiful life together, but they would also be tumultuous. Liam would be living with constant hate for himself for taking something Zayn never got the chance to have and a part of Zayn would probably always hate Liam back. And while Zayn likes to think that he’d be okay with that, that any life with Liam is better than no life at all, he knows it wouldn’t be. Not really.

Looking at Niall, Zayn can feel in his bones how happy he could be and he wants it. He’d merely settled with it before, just accepted it for what it was, and thought it would be sort of wonderful and easy, but now Zayn can feel it and it’s actually really good. 

Zayn can see the rooftop to their shitty apartment and smell the burning ramen noodles on the stove. He can see them sneaking in a dog and trying to keep it quiet whenever someone knocked on the door and lying on the living room floor with the television on low as they fuck on the carpet. 

Zayn can see himself tangled in the sheets with Niall’s head pillowed against his chest while he snored a little too loud, but Zayn wouldn’t mind because just knowing Niall is there is soothing. It reminds him that he’s loved despite his selfishness and all of the other faults Zayn doesn’t care to list. 

Zayn can feel the way Niall loves him in his bones and it doesn’t hurt the way it does with Liam. And as much as the realization breaks him and as much as Zayn wishes it weren’t true he gets it. 

“Zayn?” Niall’s voice is a little scared as he takes a tentative step forward to wipe a tear from Zayn’s face with his thumb. “I knew I should have waited. You’re not upset are you?”

Zayn shakes his head, sniffs, and when he smiles it’s a little sad but happy all the same. Niall is still there standing a little bit too close, but Zayn can smell the laundry detergent masking his ever-present scent of weed and Ireland and it’s pretty perfect. 

“If you’re not upset, what are the tears for?” Niall asks him.

For a moment, Zayn’s heart feels too broken and too full at the same time to answer. He can’t help but to think this is why Liam had wanted him to go and how earth-shattering that feeling really is. But he also feels such an immense happiness at the idea of a long and happy life with Niall and how perfect it will be if he just allows himself to give in. 

Zayn thinks of their apartment and the rooftop and the dog and all of the stars Niall has yet to show him and also of the little moments he might stop to think of Liam that will be sprinkled in between and he feels happy. 

“It’s just… I love you,” Zayn answers, and it’s the first time he’s really known it to be true. “It’s wonderful and I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Niall says it like it’s easy and plain as day. Like he’d love him forever if Zayn would let him. 

Zayn thinks he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an epilogue :)


	4. Epilogue

There’s a knock on the door one Thursday afternoon. When Liam opens it Zayn is standing outside in the rain holding a duffel bag wearing something that’s a cross between a smile and a frown. A range of emotions pass through his body - happiness, anger, sadness, confusion, disappointment, and pride - but Liam can’t really pinpoint which ones are the correct ones to feel. What he does know is Zayn is there and he’s real, but things also didn’t go according to plan. 

“You’re back,” Liam says, stating the obvious.

Zayn nods, uses his free hand to wipe some of the rain from his face. “Yeah.”

“For good?” 

It’s a big question that Liam isn’t sure he’ll get a real answer to, but tries for it anyway. Zayn just shrugs before nodding towards the inside of the house. “Depends on whether you decide to let me in or not.”

And Liam can’t help the way his lips curve into an involuntary smile as he decides on happiness because that answer is so perfect and so very Zayn and it’s all he really needs to know for now.

+

Zayn and Niall spend three years together.

The first year Zayn spends working in a bookstore while Niall tries his hand at playing shows at coffee shops and opening for little known bands in shitty night clubs. They spend the weekends holed up in the living room of their cheap apartment that Zayn kind of loves more than anything despite their surly neighbors and the fact that the heater doesn’t work and the laundry room smells like piss and eggs. He loves that it’s cozy and quirky and he shares it with Niall and it’s theirs. 

The first year is sex and happiness and trial and error and growth. 

The second year Niall stumbles upon a puppy in the park and brings it home. They call him Jeeves because he has a patch around one eye that reminds Zayn of a monocle and Niall made a joke about monocles being classy and not really them, but the irony sort of works. They’re still pretty broke and don’t have the extra money for a dog, but they’re happy and they make it work. 

The second year is a puppy and trying and hoping for the best. 

The third year rolls around and they’re pushing twenty-six and Niall is ready to move on from shitty apartments and midnight shows. He starts dropping hints about maybe giving music a rest and getting a job with a desk and a regular paycheck. Zayn can sense Niall’s restlessness, but he loves the bookstore and the roof of their apartment, and the broken heater that forces them to burrow themselves under the blankets during the winter. Zayn knows Niall is ready for the rest of their lives and everything he had seen so clearly for the pair of them when they’d finished university, but moving on means growing up, and growing up means growing old and Zayn isn’t so sure he’s ready because he still wants more. 

Niall can feel it too. He’d always known, but he’d told himself it was something that would eventually pass. There was this persistent itch under his skin that had always been there that told Niall that there was something - or someone - holding Zayn back, but they’d always been young and in love and Niall was hoping Zayn would grow out of it and realize that, to Niall, he was the sun and the moon and everything in between. 

He’d go to the moon and back if Zayn would only ask him and maybe that could be enough. 

But three years later and Zayn still has that faraway look in his eyes that only comes when he thinks Niall isn’t looking (but Niall is always looking) and it cuts even deeper because even after all this time he isn’t enough. 

It’s not messy. Niall is sweet and kind and sad and Zayn feels an unbearable amount of guilt because he’d wanted so badly for Niall to be enough. The look in Niall’s eyes every morning when he sees Zayn and Jeeves lying with him in bed should be enough to make Zayn want to experience a lifetime of happiness versus an eternity of the most painful love he’s ever known. But it isn't, and the realization that it probably never will be hits Niall and Zayn both, and it’s finally time to accept that they both deserve better than "enough."

Niall kisses Zayn and says that he loves him. Always. 

Zayn presses their foreheads together and tells Niall that he’s sorry. Forever.

+

They don’t talk about it. Not really. Partially because Liam is having a hard time believing it’s all real, but mainly because Zayn doesn't want to ruin anything by telling Liam that he couldn’t do it. Liam knows though; why Zayn is there and what made him come back. He might not know all of the details in between like how Zayn lied when he told Niall he loved the rooftop of their shitty apartment because it reminded him of college. The real reason, the one Zayn kept tucked safely inside that empty space Liam left behind in his heart, was because when he sat on that rooftop late at night when Niall was asleep or out playing a show, the stars almost looked the way they did that summer he spent with Liam before college.

They don’t talk about any of that. And they won’t. Not yet, at least. And for that Zayn is grateful because he’s not quite ready to acknowledge the fact that, no matter how much he loved that apartment and Niall and Jeeves and their shitty neighbors, everything always seemed to be outlined by something that reminded him of Liam.

“I missed you,” Zayn says one morning when he wakes up in Liam’s bed with an old comforter pulled up to his chin. His voice is thick and sleepy and content. 

Liam hums next to him, further entwining their legs under the blankets and tightening his grip around Zayn’s naked waist. The words are the same as they were the last time Zayn had said them when he’d been home just before he’d gone back to school only this time is different because Zayn is staying. He’ll be here forever, or for as long as Liam will let him. 

Liam cracks an eye open when he feels Zayn’s lips against his nose. His lips quirk up into a smile that reaches his eyes and Zayn can’t help but love the ways his eyes crinkle up, creating lines of age Liam will never see. 

“Me too,” Liam says. “But I don’t think that matters anymore.”

+

It’s when Zayn finds one of Niall’s guitar picks in the back pocket of his favorite jeans that the in-betweens of the whys and the hows start to surface.

Liam finds Zayn sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed with his head tucked between his knees, shoulders slumped and heaving as he cries. Zayn hadn’t expected the sadness that washed over him upon finding the tiny piece of plastic. Zayn was sorry and Niall was sad, but he was also okay and everything had been beautiful and epic and fun, but they’d both known it wasn’t right. They hugged and Niall had kissed him and said that he still loved him no matter what and that it was okay. 

It just hurts because the guitar pick is still there and it’s Niall’s and maybe Zayn still loves him too. Zayn misses him. Not like he’d missed Liam, but there’s still this ever-present aching in his chest that’s laced with the shame he feels for failing at something that should have been so easy. Zayn had relished in the ease of his relationship with Niall, the way they ebbed and flowed through life so effortlessly together. And Zayn hates himself for being so selfish in his inability to love Niall as much as he should have. 

Zayn starts when he feels Liam’s hand on his shoulder and he knows his eyes must be so red and puffy and his face is probably all blotchy from crying, but he can’t bring himself to care. He just falls into Liam and allows himself to be held despite knowing all the questions he knows must be swimming around in Liam’s head.

“He knew,” Zayn tells him later when he and Liam are curled up together in front of the bed, Liam rubbing soothing circles into Zayn’s back. “I think he’s always known I loved you more. Maybe not you specifically, but someone, and he…” Zayn sighs. “Niall tried so hard. We both did… but we weren’t enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Liam says and it’s so much more than the word can allow for, but it’s all he can think to say. 

Zayn shrugs, picking at a loose string on Liam’s shirt. “It’s for the best. As much as I wanted it to work a part of me has always been here with you. Niall and I could have tried for another thirty or forty years and it still would have ended the same only we’d hate each other for wasting so much time on something that was never going to work in the first place.”

When Zayn looks back at Liam it’s as though everything is being said at once without either of them having to speak the words out loud. It’s Zayn saying “I told you so” and hoping that Liam thinks they may just be worth a shot; that maybe they are forever, all Liam has to do is take that chance. 

It’s Liam realizing that Zayn has probably been right this whole time. That as much as he wants to protect him and do what’s best, maybe Zayn really should be the one to make that decision for himself. It’s Liam realizing that he does deserve happiness just as much as Zayn does perhaps the only way they can find that is within each other. 

It’s Liam nodding and pulling Zayn impossibly closer to his chest and whispering “You've always been right.”

+

“I’m older than you,” Zayn says one morning as he pours himself a cup of coffee.

Liam pauses, looks up from the newspaper he’d been reading. Says, “Huh?”

Zayn grips his mug with both hands, blows cool air over the hot liquid. “I mean, maybe not technically, but I’m older than you.”

And it’s true because while Liam’s stuck at twenty-three, Zayn is a few months past twenty-six. Neither of them says it out loud, but they both know what it means. Zayn might only be twenty-six now, but that’s still a whole three years past Liam’s twenty-three, and Zayn is only getting older. Three will soon turn to ten which will lead to twenty and on and on until…

It might not matter so much no, but it will when Zayn is old and gray and dying. 

Now, Liam only nods and watches as Zayn’s lips curve around the rim of his mug as he takes his first sip. “Yeah,” he says. “I suppose you are.”

And that’s that. For now. They’ll talk about it later.

+

The thing is, they don’t.

They never talk about it because, for the first time, things are good and neither of them wants to ruin it. Zayn’s too afraid to ask about the fountain and where it is and whether or not Liam will take him because he knows how much Liam hates it. Zayn knows how much Liam resents eternity and how he sometimes looks at the clock on Zayn’s lower back, traces the lines and the numbers, and hates just how much he and the ink have in common. 

Like the clock on Zayn’s back Liam is stuck, frozen in time, while everyone else keeps ticking and ticking until their clocks run out and they’re put to rest. Sometimes, when it’s late and Liam thinks he’s the only one awake, Zayn will feel him tracing the lines of his tattoo. Liam’s fingers will skim over the where the big hand reaches the two or the tiny, barely noticeable freckle just below the roman numeral representing the nine. Zayn will feel it and he can only imagine just how lonely Liam must have felt spending all those nights alone knowing he has all the time in the world. He thinks of how much time has changed things and how relative it really is and what all of that really means. Mostly, Zayn just thinks about how time is the one thing he wants more than anything while it’s also the one thing Liam wishes he could give up. 

They each want what the other has and it’s simultaneously for all the right and wrong reasons, but both of them are too afraid to speak up. 

Eventually, it’s just too late because one year turns into two and now Zayn is twenty-eight and Liam is lighting candles and singing happy birthday in that beautifully melancholy voice that’s tinged with the smallest bit of happiness because Zayn is that much further towards having the life he’s always wanted. 

It’s a life with Liam. One they both know will eventually come to an end as each day passes them by and neither of them has ever been more aware of the time they have, how sweet it really is, and how little of it they really have.

+

They don’t waste it.

Zayn paints pictures and sells them at a local gallery and every now and then he’ll write something for a local magazine that publishes small-time authors. He spends afternoons by the river fishing with Liam, jotting down notes in a small notebook he likes to keep with him, and when the light hits Liam’s face just right and his smile is bright the way it used to be when Zayn was young and fresh and barely starting out in life, Zayn will sketch Liam the way he always wants to remember him. 

Liam enjoys Zayn the way he never enjoyed his family and all the people he’d loved before he’d run into that strange beautiful little boy burying the dead bird in his front yard. He doesn’t take things for granted and commits every detail of every day to memory so he can never make the mistake of forgetting. Liam memorizes every inch of ink and every freckle on Zayn’s skin and makes note of all the different smiles Zayn has for every occasion. He falls in love with all the habits Zayn has that he never took the time to notice before like the way Zayn has to have his banana sliced paper-thin when he puts them into his cereal or the way he blows on his coffee three times (no more no less) before he takes the first sip. 

Liam does his best to remember everything while consciously avoiding the reason why because they still have time.

+

“It’s gray,” Zayn says one morning when he pads into the living room in a pair of Liam’s pajama pants that are just a tad too big.

Liam looks up from the book he’s reading and raises his brows, amused. “What?”

“My hair,” Zayn answers as though it should really be obvious. “It’s going gray. Don’t you see it? At the temples? It’s fucking gray!” 

Zayn is barely a month past thirty-five, over ten years past Liam’s twenty-three, and neither of them really want to acknowledge that it’s been so long. Going gray is something to be expected, but it’s still sort of shocking and only serves as another reminder of Zayn’s age. 

Liam stands, dropping his book onto the chair he’d been sitting on, and approaches Zayn. He takes a closer look toward the roots of his hair and, sure enough, there’s a bit of gray peeking through the black. He finds himself grinning despite the fact that this only means Zayn is getting older and chuckles at how distressed Zayn is feeling about it all. 

“Who's the old man now?” Liam jokes, pressing a kiss to Zayn’s forehead, then to his lips before giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry about it, babe. It looks good on you.”

+

Soon enough, Zayn starts to feel the pieces of age that Liam never got to.

He gets tired easier, doesn’t see as well as he used to, and sometimes Liam has to repeat himself a few times before Zayn actually hears him. 

When Zayn hits fifty his doctor tells him he has arthritis in his hands and even though Zayn never says so much in words Liam knows it kills him because an artist is his hands and pretty soon Zayn won’t be able to use his.  
This all happens over time and it’s not until Zayn’s mother dies that Liam realizes the severity of it all and how little time they really have left. 

Liam doesn’t go to the funeral because it isn’t really his place and Zayn’s family doesn’t know much about him anyway. He also knows it would be odd for him to show up looking the same as he had almost forty years earlier. 

When Zayn comes home his face is even sadder than it had been before he’d left and Liam thinks it’s due to the fact that he’d just lost his mother. But then Zayn looks up and his eyes meet Liam’s and he knows that it’s more. 

“Zayn…” Liam says and then Zayn is shaking his head and crossing the room, wrapping tired arms around Liam’s shoulders and pressing his face into the crook of his neck. 

“I don’t want to do that to you,” he whispers. “I don’t want to die and leave you here the way my mom did to my father.”

Liam can feel the slump in Zayn’s shoulders and the strength in the hold Zayn has on his body that isn’t really there anymore because sometimes it hurts to grip Liam so tight. Liam can feel all the differences that age has brought on to the way they interact, but Zayn’s voice is still the same and so is his heart and, if he’s honest, Liam doesn’t want him to go either. 

“I watched him the whole time and he… he was just so lost without her,” Zayn says. “He was so sad and lost and all I could think about was you and I- I don’t want to do that to you. I can’t do that to you again.”

“But you can,” Liam says, his voice breaking as he pulls out of Zayn’s grasp so he can see him properly. His eyes are wet before he even realizes that he’s crying. “You can and you will because you deserve it.”

Zayn shakes his head, holds Liam’s face in his hands before leaning forward to press their lips together in a kiss that is more of a promise than anything else. “I want forever,” Zayn tells him. “With you.”

The answer is simple. All Liam has to do is take Zayn a few miles into the woods and let him drink. It’s a simple ingestion of liquid and then it’s just the two of them for as long as eternity will allow. 

But Liam only smiles and presses their foreheads together. When he looks at Zayn he doesn’t see an old man who has just lost his mother and realized just how finite life really is. Liam sees the fresh young boy with an obnoxious shock of blond hair and tattoos littering his skin and the brightest eyes and kindest smile Liam has ever seen. He sees Zayn, his love for a lifetime. Liam kisses Zayn once, twice, three times for good measure. 

“It’ll be okay. We have time.”

+

Liam wakes up one Tuesday morning and Zayn is still sleeping.

He goes into the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee before stepping outside to grab the morning paper. 

The coffee is ready by the time Liam’s done reading the headlines, so he pours Zayn a cup and takes it to their bedroom. He sets it down on the nightstand and shakes Zayn’s shoulder, to wake him. 

Liam presses a kiss to his hair and calls out his name. 

Zayn doesn’t wake up. 

He was eighty-five.

+

The first few days feel like a dream. Maybe a nightmare.

Liam tells himself that Zayn has only gone to visit his family for a few days because he liked to do that from time to time to stay connected. 

When a week goes by and Zayn still isn’t back Liam tells himself it’s like before when Zayn had gone off with Niall. At least then, Zayn was still somewhere out in the world, it just wasn’t with Liam and he could live with that because it meant Zayn was still breathing and happy and living. 

But then Zayn’s things start collecting dust and Liam finds little reminders of their life together and it becomes all too obvious that Zayn wasn’t visiting family or living with Niall.

Zayn had just died and Liam was alone. 

Pills are first. 

Liam uses Zayn’s unfinished bottle of pain meds and runs to the store for a bottle of whiskey. He spends the night in front of the fireplaces wrapped up in a blanket that still smelled a little like Zayn when he closes his eyes, drinking booze and singing all of Zayn’s old favorite songs. 

Liam wakes up the following morning in a pool of his own vomit nursing a violent headache he doesn’t think will ever leave. 

He hangs himself next. 

Liam fashions a noose and hangs himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom. It’s a few short moments before his breathing is cut short and just when he’s about to pass out Liam thinks he might be dying. 

But then he wakes up on the floor two hours later with rope burn and a shooting pain in his left leg from the fall. 

Liam shoots himself in the head next, holds the gun to his temple to make sure he doesn’t miss, but that only makes a mess and the wound takes too long to heal. 

Trying and failing only makes him miss Zayn more and each time he comes back, Liam can only think of how disappointed Zayn would be at him working so hard to end it all. 

It’s just that Liam feels empty in a way that he never has before. He’s known loss for so long, but never in this way. This was different. With Zayn gone, Liam feels this giant, necrotic hole in his chest. Like a part of him died the same morning Zayn did, only Liam is still breathing and just as stuck as he had been before. 

When Liam finally accepts that he isn’t going anywhere, he climbs into Zayn’s side of the bed and hugs his pillow close while he cries. Much to his surprise, it still smells like him.

Liam wonders how much time will pass before the scent fades.

+

A year later and Liam is sitting by the river. The sun feels warm against his skin and he’s flipping through one of Zayn’s old sketchbooks.

It’s funny because it’s just as he remembers it. Liam can still see Zayn curled up against the tree watching him with eyes that Liam can feel tracing the lines of his body. It had never bothered him before, but now it sort of does because Zayn isn’t curled up against that tree and the ache in Liam’s chest is still just as raw as it had been the day Zayn died. 

But just as the hole in his head had, and the phantom rope burns Liam can still feel around his neck whenever he closes his eyes and thinks back to the ceiling fan and that harsh fall to the floor, all wounds eventually heal. 

He just needs to give it time. 

It’s just that sometimes the world gets to quiet and Liam remembers the night he spent in front of a fireplace with a boy who had held Liam closer to his heart than he’d ever thought a person could allow. And that boy had asked Liam to stay with him. To never leave. 

Zayn had asked for forever and even though Liam had wanted so badly to say yes, he’d let him go. 

And now Liam is sitting alone flipping through pages of drawings penned by the hand of a young, beautiful boy who could be sitting right there with him if Liam had only given him the chance. 

Liam should have been selfish and given Zayn the forever he’d asked for lifetimes before. Instead, they’d both only gotten such a finite amount of time that never truly felt like enough.

But Zayn had laughed and loved and lost. He’d accomplished his dreams and met a boy in college who had loved him to the moon and back. Zayn had made more mistakes than he’d ever admit to and broken a few hearts while having his own broken in the process. Zayn had loved Liam fiercely and fearlessly and effortlessly and they’d gotten a lifetime together. 

Zayn had lived and, even though Liam has a hard time admitting it now, that’s all he’d ever wanted for him. 

It’s just that forever is a long time to be without someone you hold so closely and dearly and Liam is having a hard time adjusting. 

But they’d had a lifetime, something Liam never thought he’d ever had a chance at having, and it was beautiful and wonderful and tragic and everything he could have asked for. It’s something Liam can lie back in the grass and think about when forever feels like too much. Sometimes he’ll laugh, others he’ll cry, and sometimes Liam will just remember. 

Because he can do that. He has time.


End file.
